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HOLME, Thomas. Afteykeninge van de Stadt Philadelp

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Amsterdam: Jacob Claus, 1684. Engraved folding map (205 x 320 mm sight size). Nicely matted and framed. Provenance: Martin P. Snyder. rare dutch edition of holme's plan of philadelphia. Among the earliest examples of city planning, William Penn's square grid of the city was surveyed and drafted in Philadelphia by Thomas Holme. Intended to reflect orderliness and to ease the dividing of lots, the plan was also projected to thwart the destruction of fires by laying wide streets at right angles. Holme's engraved plan was first published as the frontispiece to Penn's promotional tract A Letter ... to the Committee of the Free Society of Traders in London in 1683. "Benjamin Furly, a Quaker trader in Rotterdam and owner of 4,000 acres in Pennsylvania, represented Penn's interests on the Continent. Doubtless it was through him that a Dutch edition of Penn's letter promoting his colony was promptly printed in Amsterdam ... With the reprinting of the letter came a new engraved plan of the Philadelphia city grid prepared from Thomas Holme's Portraiture. The new plan was by no means an exact copy of the original engraved in London. It contained many improvements. It was a more finished work throughout" (Snyder, COI). It is generally assumed that the Dutch version of Holme's plan is more scarce due to the smaller circulation of the promotional tract. Referring to the original edition of Holme's plan, Burden writes, "The printed map is the first to depict an English colonial North American town and is of considerable importance." Burden 581; Phillips, Descriptive List of Maps and Views of Philadelphia 145; Snyder, COI 2 (this copy illustrated as Fig. 2).

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