Topographia Helvetiae, Rhaetiae et Valesiae. Dat is Een Beschryuinge en Eygentlyke Afbeeldinge der Steden en Plaetsen vant loffelyke Eetgenootscap anders Schweitserland, Graubunters, Wallissers en toegehorige plaetsen. Naart leven afgetekent door Matheo Merian ....

Amsterdam, C(ornelis) Dankers, 1644. Engr. figured title, engr. heraldic head-piece to dedication, large engr. folding map of Switzerland by Blaeu after Mercator, 55 large engr. plates (almost all double-spread, 1 folding) with a total of 75 views. VI, 48 pp. Folio. Contemp. vellum. Amsterdam, C(ornelis) Dankers, (1644). (Bound with:) SIMLER, Josias. Een Historische Beschrijvinge van Svvitser-landt. Begrijpende Den Oorsprong van alle haer Verbonden, Victorien, en andere ghedenckwaerdige Gheschiedenissen ... Beschreven in't Latijn door Iosias Simler ... En nu in't nederduyts uyt-ghegheven. With engr. illus. on title. 81, (1) pp. Amsterdam, Cornelis Danckaertsz., 1644. First Dutch edition, complete with all plates and the map of Switzerland (the map of Germany was not part of this edition). In honor of his native country, the Swiss topography was the first publication in Merian's main work, his corpus of 31 topographies. The present Dutch edition was published only two years after the German edition, together with a Dutch translation of Simler's "De Republica Helvetiorum" (1577). The famous large views include Zurich (2), Stein am Rhein, Berne, Burgdorf, Lausanne, Thun, Lucerne, Beromünster, Altdorf, Schwyz, Einsiedeln, Zug, Glarus, Basel (3), Liestal, Fribourg, Solothurn, Schaffhausen, Appenzell, Baden, Zurzach, Bremgarten, Rapperswil, St. Gall, Bienne, Geneva, Chur, Plurs, and Mulhouse (Alsace), a.o. "One could get the impression that the volume about Switzerland is particularly vivid" (trans. after Egli). The title illustration to Simler's work shows the famous scene of Tell aiming at the apple on his son's head, as published before in the Gottfried chronicle of 1632. - Waterstain in upper margin often affecting plates, worm track sometimes affecting plates. - Wüthrich I, 2; Egli, in: Die schönsten Städte der Schweiz (1965), p. VII; Eckhardt, M. Merian. Ein kulturhist. Studie (1892), p. 33f. Not in Schuchardt. ILLUSTRATED BOOKS (BEFORE 1900) ; HELVETICA ;