Italiae, Illirici, Sardiniae, Corsicae, et confinium regionum nova et exacta descriptio. Petro Plancio auctore. . .

Very rare map of Italy showing the area between Geneva (Switzerland), Szeged (Ottoman Hungary) and Catania (Sicily), showing patriarchates, archbishoprics and bishoprics, towns and rivers. Title in a fretwork cartouche with cherubs. . Decorative ships and sea monsters, compass roses, with 32 points.
Prepared by Petrus Plancius, engraved and first published by Baptista Doetecum. Here with the address of Paul de la Houve and John Garrett.

In lower right corner a scale cartouche with the text "Printed colored and Sold by John Garrett ay ye South entrance of the Royall Exchange in Corn-hill as you go upon staires.
One of the leading map and print sellers of the last quarter of the century, who was connected to most of the major figures in the trade. He was a member of the Merchant Taylors' Company. He is first recorded in the will that Thomas Jenner drawn up in 1666 in which Garrett and his wife were bequeathed 20s. 'desiring his care and assistance for the care and benefit of my wife'. It is not however clear what his origins were. Tyacke (pp.114-6) lists various possible options. The most likely is that he was a son of another John Garrett who was freed in July 1646 in the Merchant Taylor's Company; the publisher Robert Greene (qv) was apprenticed to him in 1652, and the link endured to Greene's death in 1688 when the younger Garrett helped make an inventory of his property. The elder Garrett may have been the son of William Garrett who was the trusted right-hand man of the printer John Bill, and is very warmly characterized in Bill's will in 1630.
In 1674 Garrett and John Overton made an inventory of the stock of Thomas Jenner. Garrett subsequently bought Jenner's business, and continued his shop at the same address 'at the foot of the stairs' or 'as you go up the stairs of the Royal Exchange in Cornhill'.
Garrett remained closely linked to Overton, and in 1677 Garrett's younger sister Sara married Overton as his second wife. She was then described as about 28 years old.
Paul de la Houve (c. 1575-1645) was an engraver and seller of prints and books who moved from Antwerp to Paris. He published various copies of Plancius' maps there. De la Houve placed his own imprint at the spot where the original gives the name of the engraver, Baptista van Doetecum. He also made some changes in the decoration. The ships and the fish have disappeared from Tyrrhenian Sea. In their place, De la Houve's map shows an engraved medallion with the portrait of Pope Paul V and a smaller compass rose. The map was reprinted by John Garrett who added his own address.

Reference: Schilder, Monumenta Cartographica Neerlandica, vol. VII : 15.33, later state by John Garrett.