Japanese Maps : Kyō oezu

Japanese Maps

<p style='text-align: justify;'> Wood-block printed, commercial map of the city of Kyoto, one sheet, folded, in colour, in Japanese. It is the same map as Japanese 82, but, according to Kornicki (1993), this copy was printed some time in the years 1734-42 with further revisions to the original blocks. The title is reported on a mounted cover label, with the subtitle "Shinsen zōho" (Newly compiled and enlarged). A colophon, in the lower central section, reports Kyō (Kyoto) as place of publication and Hayashi-shi Yoshinaga (Yoshinaga of the Hayashi family) as publisher, but no publication date.</p><p style='text-align: justify;'>The map was first published in the Kyōhō era (1716-36). Since 1686, Hayashi Yoshinaga published several editions of Kyoto maps titled "Shinsen zōho Kyō ōezu", all typically shaped with the North-South direction longer than the East-West one, all not adhering to an exact scale, and all meant as guides to sightseeing in Kyoto. They are representative of the cartography of Kyoto in the mid-Edo period, and were greatly influential for other maps of the city. They introduced new graphic conventions (older maps tended, for example, to fill sections of the city in black ink, a feature absent in most of Hayashi’s maps), and new textual content, including detailed annotations about temples, shrines and other famous places, and catalogues of house names associated with family crests.</p><p style='text-align: justify;'>This map covers all of Kyoto (the area known as Rakuchū), as well as some of its surrounding hills (the area known as Rakugai), with relief shown pictorially, in a fashion that became typical for Kyoto maps in the second half of the 17th century, as the city and its outskirts, with their temples and shrines, historical sites, and other famous places, became popular travel destinations. It is oriented with north to the top (if the colophon is used as reference). It includes a chart with distances (calculated from the Sanjo area) and an index of places. </p>