Tirion, Isaac

description

Tirion, Isaac (also spelled Isac, Isaak, and once, Isauc)

Tirion, Isaac and his first and second wives (the second, Johanna, carried on the business for ten years after Isaac’s death, until 1779) were booksellers and publishers of atlases with maps mostly based on the work of Delisle. Koeman says “Tirion probably was not the author or editor of the maps he published. He was more of a bookseller and publisher than a geographer or cartographer”. The
first reworked Delisle-Tirion maps were actually published in Venice by Giambattista (Giovanni Battista) Albrizzi in “Atlante Novissimo che contiene tutte le parti del Mondo…”, published in 1740 and 1750. The title page of volume 1 (of two) from 1740 states that all of the maps except the first (Mappa Mondo), including “Regno di Polonia diviso nei suoi Palatinati”, were printed (not created or engraved) by Tirion. One source describes (I now believe incorrectly) Albrizzi’s atlas as just a
republishing of Delisle’s “Atlas de Géographie”, pubished 1700–1718, and republished in Amsterdam by Covens & Mortier in Amsterdam between 1730 and 1774 (!). Tirion first published his own atlas in Amsterdam beginning 1744: “Nieuwe en Beknopte Hand Atlas von… steden van Europe…” with five more editions published through 1779 and possibly later. A version of this atlas described as “After 1769” states that Tirion says the maps were “after Bolstra, Cruquius, de la Caille, de L’Isle, d’Anville,
Hattinga and others”. Dating his maps of “Polonia” or “Poolen” separated from the atlases in which they were published can be problematic – and this research has led me to change the publication dates of quite a few Tirion maps on this site, maps that had impossible publication dates from many reputable sources, including museums. What’s clear to me:

  • Delisle-Tirion-Albrizzi: “REGNO DI POLONIA” is from Albrizzi’s 1740 Venice atlas
  • Delisle-Tirion-Albrizzi: “REGNO DI POLONIA, DIVISO NEI SUOI PALATINATI appears to be an intermediate version of the previous map, from 1740, and the one that follows, from 1750. The cartouche is a simple box, in the style of Tirion’s 1744 “Nieuwe Kaart… Poolen”, but excising nearly all of Tirion’s verbiage. There must have been a third Albrizzi atlas, c1745, from which this version came
  • Delisle-Tirion-Albrizzi: “NUOVACARTA del REGNO DI POLONIADiviso nei suoi Palatinati, Secondo l’ultime offervazioni ed anotazioni, fata in AMSTERDAM, per ISAK TIRION (New  Map of the Kingdom Of Poland, Divided into its Palatinates, according to the latest observations and annotations, printed in Amsterdam by Tirion), is from Albrizzi’s 1750 Venice atlas
  • Delisle-Tirion:“Nieuwe Kaart van t’ Koninkryk Poolen…” (New map of the Kingdom of Poland) cannot be from earlier than Tirion’s 1744 Amsterdam atlas, but could be from up to 40 years later

Dates

1705–1769

Place of birth

Amsterdam