Russia

The earliest group of printed maps of Russia are Ptolemaic in origin. Based on the work of the classical geographer, Claudius Ptolemy (circa 150 AD), they were first issued in printed form in 1477. As the principal geographical text to survive the Dark Ages, they were immensely influential and were published in a number of editions. They are represented here by examples from the Ulm edition of 1486 and the Rome edition of 1490. Printed from woodblocks, the Ptolemaic maps continued to be issued into the sixteenth century, though map-makers such as Martin Waldseemuller and Lorenz Fries (1513-41) began to include "modern" maps. This change was due partly to better surveying techniques but also to a change in attitude which no longer regarded the past as the sole fount of knowledge.
In the sixteenth century the advances to the mapping of Russia were mainly conducted by diplomatic and trade visitors to the country. One the most significant was Sigismund Herberstein, an ambassador to Moscow between 1516 and 1526 in the service of the Imperial Court in Vienna. Herberstein produced what is regarded as the first dedicated description of Russia, including a woodcut map of Moscovy and a plan of Moscow. The map was based on his travels together with material gathered by the Lithuanian, Ivan Lyatsky.
The middle of the 16th century saw changes in the technology of printing maps as well as a shift in the centres of map making away from Germany. The greater stylistic freedom and detail allowed by copper engraving led to the rise of the Italian Lafreri school of map making. It was the custom for Italian map sellers to bind together available maps into a composite atlas, by other publishers as well as themselves. These composites, often tailored for the individual purchaser, have come to be known by the generic title of Lafreri Atlases. One of the leading figures of Italian cartography was Giacomo Gastaldi. His influential maps were copied by many of his countrymen including Girolamo Ruscelli and Giovanni Camocio and turned Venice into the acknowledged centre of mapping excellence. Map publishing in Venice went into serious decline during the plague epidemic of 1575-1577 and never fully recovered. A contemporary of the Italian publishers, Abraham Ortelius of Antwerp made the most of this opportunity. He came up with the idea of publishing contemporary maps in a uniform format and his Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, first published in 1570, is considered the first modern "atlas". Ortelius was also unique in his habit of acknowledging his sources including his map of Russia, which he attributes to the Englishman, Anthony Jenkinson.
Jenkinson was a significant figure in the cartographic opening up of Russia. He was chief factor of the London-based Muscovy Company and travelled extensively while trying to find an alternative route to China to replace the closed Silk Road. He reached as far as Bokhara in Asiatic Russia and subsequently compiled a map of his travels. This was used by Ortelius and by his rival Gerard De Jode as a basis for their maps of Russia.
Braun & Hogenberg were contemporaries of Ortelius and their Civitates Orbis Terrarum, the first atlas of town plans, was originally planned as a companion to Ortelius' great atlas. The Braun & Hogenberg plan of Moscow derives from Herberstein and depicts the old city in and around the Kremlin. After Braun's death in 1622 the plates lay unused until Jan Jansson acquired them in 1653. Jansson reprinted about 230 of the plates at a reduced size. If you compare the Jansson map of Moscow to the Braun & Hogenberg you will see that the description and part of the River Neglinnaya are missing.
The great Dutch cartographer Willem Blaeu, produced his first map of Russia in 1614, compiled by his one time apprentice Hessel Gerritsz. Many of the other Amsterdam publishers including Hondius, Jansson and Visscher used information supplied by a Dutch traveller, Isaac Massa. It is interesting to compare the maps of Blaeu, Visscher and Speed as it seems that while Visscher uses the geography of Massa but has taken the map and Archangel vignette from Gerritz as well as additional features from elsewhere. The so-called Speed map was actually added posthumously to the final 1676 edition of Prospect of the Most Famous Parts of the World, and was taken directly from the Dutch models. The maps are visually very similar but the varying insets and the White Sea area demonstrate their differences. Joan Blaeu's Atlas Maior also contained an extremely fine plan of Moscow, which is likely to have been based upon the survey ordered by Boris Fyodorovich Godunov.
The developments in surveying during the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, leading to increased knowledge of the geography of Russia, led to evermore elaborate maps. Cartographers such as Rossi, Seutter and Homann produced beautiful maps and city plans with intricate cartouches and rich colour. Under Peter the Great, Russian culture was greatly Europeanised and this was reflected in the employment of the De L'Isle brothers to map the country. In 1745 Atlas Russicus was published and used as a template for maps of Russia by many other cartographers for the much of the century.