Rare first edition of the first national atlas of Brazil, published in Rio de Janeiro by the Lithographia do Instituto Philomathico in 1868.
Large folio (34.7 x 46.4 cm). 3 unnumbered leaves, pp. 7-36 printed in five columns, one unnumbered leaf, and 27 colour maps numbered I-XXIV, the discrepancy between the number of sheets and the printed sequence resulting from the inclusion of several supplementary maps.
Original publisher's binding in half green cloth, unlettered smooth cloth spine, upper board framed in flexible vellum and blocked with the title, lower board entirely covered in flexible vellum. Damage to the lower right corner of the upper board, the binding restored. A few small spots of foxing.
The atlas encompasses the administrative, ecclesiastical, electoral and judicial divisions of the Brazilian Empire. The provincial maps are accompanied by a world map, general representations of the national territory, statistical tables, demographic information, and details of frontiers, districts, cities, rivers and principal mountain ranges. This systematic assembly of previously scattered information led the work to be recognised as the first atlas of Brazil and as a foundational landmark of Brazilian national cartography.
Brazil was not without maps before 1868. Many had been produced in Europe, while others, sometimes by Brazilian authors, remained in military and administrative archives. They nevertheless presented a fragmented image of the country, varied widely in accuracy and were often inaccessible to the general public. Cândido Mendes set out to compare, correct and assemble them into a coherent work capable of providing the Empire with a common representation of its own territory.
This purpose is stated on the title page itself. Dedicated to Emperor Pedro II, the atlas was intended for public education throughout the Empire, with particular emphasis on the pupils of the Imperial Collegio de Pedro II. Geography here became a means of national formation: to learn the provinces, their boundaries, institutions and resources was to make visible the unity of an immense country whose external frontiers and internal divisions were still imperfectly defined.
The work thus belongs fully to the cultural policy of Brazil's Second Empire. Its maps do more than locate places. They organise institutions, distribute populations, distinguish civil, religious and electoral jurisdictions, and bring these different realities together within a single imperial framework. Intended for school pupils, the atlas disseminated a legible, ordered and politically unified image of Brazil.
Its author combined the experience of a lawyer, teacher and politician. Born in Maranhão in 1818, Cândido Mendes de Almeida taught before pursuing a long parliamentary career, first as a general deputy and then, from 1871, as senator for his native province. His cartographical work directly reflects this public career: it records the existing divisions of the country while also advancing proposals for its future territorial organisation.
The most striking of these was Pinsônia, a proposed new province to be separated from northern Grão-Pará, centred upon Macapá and bordering French Guiana. Represented within the atlas, the project answered administrative and strategic concerns as well as the desire to reinforce Brazilian sovereignty in a contested frontier region. By giving this unrealised province a cartographical form, Cândido Mendes transformed the map into a political argument: through lines, colours and boundaries, the projected territory acquired the appearance of an already conceivable reality.
This prospective dimension distinguishes the atlas from a straightforward geographical inventory. Cândido Mendes does not merely portray the Empire as officially constituted in 1868. He measures its imbalances, examines its frontiers and proposes an organisation that he believed better suited to the defence and government of its most distant territories.
A rare copy, preserved in its original publisher's binding, of this landmark of Brazilian cartography. Dedicated to Pedro II and conceived for the education of the Empire's pupils, the atlas describes Brazil, brings order to its territory and, through Pinsônia, even ventures to draw its future.
