Johan van Heemskerk - Batavische Arcadia - 1756

Johan van Heemskerk: Batavische Arcadia, 1756

Complete, with frontispiece and 5 folding maps including the large map of Batavia city

BATAVISCHE ARCADIA, where in, beneath the leafy-work of flattery, trade was conducted, from the origin of the old Batavia, the freedom of the Batavians, the free sea, sea-founders, discoverers of buried treasures, exchanges of goods, the pressings of truth through tortures, the injustice of long legal procedures, and other similarly serious matters more....

Johan van Heemskerk (1597-1656) published De Batavische Arcadia for the first time in 1647, his most famous work. It is the "prototype" of all Dutch arcadial novels, interwoven with many interesting articles on witchcraft, magic, Dutch history, the Dutch East Indies, Dutch folklore and more.

The Hague, Ottho van Tol, 1756 - leather binding with gold-stamped spine - 656 pp + index - 20 x 14 cm - in good condition. Small damage to the spine, narrow gap near the hinge, but everything solid. Interior excellent, engravings likewise.

Illustrated with a frontispiece and 5 fold-out maps:

I. Depicting a Coach with two Horses, standing still before the House at Delft. II. Depicting the Sea Route near Katwijk. III. Depicting a Departure, in which a Magic Charm. IV. Depicting a view of the City of Batavia. V. Depicting a Harderin.

The jurist Van Heemskerck (1597-1656) was an advocate in The Hague and Amsterdam, a magistrate of Amsterdam and eventually a member of the High Court of Holland. He wrote a number of poems and tragedies. In this Arcadia (first edition 1637) he treats, in the description of a playful journey from The Hague to Katwijk, a large part of the national history. The book was very popular. The second edition (1647) was revised and provided with notes by Caspar van Baerle and, in this form, the book was printed about ten more times, well into the 19th century.

An "arcadia" became a synonym for a travelogue that could be interwoven with various tales and historical and tourist digressions. One can think of the arcadias of Soeteboom, Lambert van den Bos(ch), Claas Bruin and others.