An extremely rare large-scale plan of Lisbon, Portugal, published at the conclusion of the Peninsular War (1808-14). It illustrates the city and nearby Belém nearly sixty years after the horrific earthquake which destroyed the city. It took about 40 years to reconstruct the new city. The 1755 earthquake and subsequent fires and tsunami claimed an estimated 40-50,000 lives and was felt as far away as England.

The Peninsular War formed part of the Napoleonic War (1803-15). The ‘peninsula’ is the Iberian one which included Spain, allied at the time with Napoleon, and Portugal a long-time trading partner of the British. With the eastern front largely settled, Napoleon Bonaparte turned his attention to Portugal and ordered them to close its ports to the British. When the Portuguese disobeying the instruction, Napoleon ordered 30,000 troops to march through Spain in 1807. Conquering Portugal, he also disrupted Spain so much that he installed his brother Joseph Bonaparte as ruler, triggering an independence movement. Britain came to the aid of Portugal and invaded in 1808 under the command of Arthur Wellesley (1769-1852) whose stubborn resistance pushed the French back until Napoleon was finally defeated at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815. Wellesley had been made the Duke of Wellington in the previous year.

The central portion of the city in the low-lying areas, can be seen to have been entirely rebuilt into an orderly grid like system. The hillier portions of the city are delicately indicated by engraved hachures. The Castelo de S. Jorge sits in a commanding position overlooking the city. Further downriver is the town of Belém. At the edge of the map is the historic Jerónimos Monastery which fortunately suffered little damage in the earthquake.

A legend upper right provides a list of abbreviations. An alphabetical table identifies 91 places found by the overlaid grid system lettered in the margins top and left. Many include the date of their foundation. An explanation sits to the left, the other side of the Portuguese royal arms with a scale of Portuguese Leagues and English Miles below. The Royal family was at the time ruling its empire from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, having fled at the beginning of the conflict. The map is engraved by Samuel John Neele (1758-1824) in London whose imprint is below the title. The imprint below the map provides the only English; ‘London Drawn & Published November 1st. 1814 by I Tomkyns (late) Captn. Royal Dragoons’. Although drawn and published in London it is otherwise entirely in Portuguese.

The mapmaker is most likely one Captain John Tomkyns of the Royal Dragoons who was serving in the area by 1810. This survey was undertaken in 1812 and dedicated to the Duke of Wellington. Existing accurate maps of Portugal and Spain were limited at the outbreak of the war. Both the French and British addressed this, the latter with Jasper Nantiat’s four-sheet map of Spain and Portugal published by William Faden in 1810.

An extremely rare map, only five institutional examples have been identified: the British Library, National Library of Portugal, Museum of Lisbon, University of Basel Library, and the Rumsey Map Center, Stanford University. ODNB; Smith, Richard (2013).