A map of the Mediterranean Sea with the adjacent regions and seas in Europe, Asia and Africa, 1785 (section)

Spread across this sheet is the whole Mediterranean world as a London mapmaker understood it in 1785: Spain and Portugal in dusty rose at the left, Italy reaching down toward Sicily, the Greek islands scattered like crumbs, and the long tan sweep of the North African coast below. The colouring is applied only along borders and coastlines, a common practice at the time, done by hand with a fine brush after the copper plate had been printed. The interiors stay mostly bare so the engraved rivers, mountains and hundreds of tiny place names can still be read. Look at the bottom right of Spain and you will find Gibraltar, which had just survived a three year siege by Spanish and French forces when this map was made, a fact that would have been very fresh in the minds of British buyers.

William Faden ran one of the busiest map shops in London and held the title Geographer to King George III. He had inherited the business from Thomas Jefferys and made his name publishing battle plans of the American Revolutionary War, often working from surveys sent home by officers. That same workshop produced this Mediterranean sheet, aimed at merchants, naval men and armchair travellers who wanted to follow the news. The decorated title panel in the lower left is the one place where the mapmaker allowed himself some fun: allegorical female figures representing the three continents named in the title sit among putti, a lion and scattered emblems, a leftover of rococo taste attached to an otherwise businesslike document.