• A 16th-century atlas once owned by Queen Mary I will be offered for $1.6 million at the New York Antiquarian Book Fair.
• The rare volume includes unique early maps of Britain, reflecting emerging imperial ambitions.
• An export ban means buyers must keep it in the U.K. or allow institutional acquisition.

At this year’s New York Antiquarian Book Fair, San Diego-based Barry Lawrence Ruderman Antique Maps Inc. will offer a newfound 460-year old copy of Polydore Vergil’s Anglica Historia atlas formerly owned by Queen Mary I, the first woman to rule England. The dealer has dubbed it “the most significant artifact of Tudor intellectual history still in private hands.” For $1.6 million, the atlas could be yours—though there are strings attached.

Barry Lawrence Ruderman snagged this atlas in partnership HS Rare Books and Clive A. Burden LTD at its auction debut two years ago for $227,000—against a high estimate of £20,000 ($40,059). “I was prepared to pay a lot more,” Alex Clausen, the firm’s president, told me over the phone. Beyond its royal provenance, the object also features exquisite gild work by the mysterious Medallion Binder surrounding Bloody Mary’s monogrammed coat of arms, imbuing this rare secular book in the devoutly Catholic monarch’s collection with a befitting bit of godliness.

The exterior of Queen Mary I’s copy of “Urbinatis Anglicae Historiae Libri Vigintiseptem”(1555-58) by Polydori Vergilii, featuring her coat of arms. Photo courtesy of Barry Lawrence Ruderman Antique Maps Inc.

Crucially, the atlas includes the earliest known separate depictions of the U.K. and relevant locales, foretelling British imperialism. “By presenting each territory as an individual subject rather than parts of a unified whole, they suggest the nascent idea of an incremental and expanding British dominion,” the listing states. Their unprecedented detail evidences England’s desire for self-defense in the years before the Spanish Armada.

Italian priest Polydore Vergile released three editions of Anglicae Historae, which tells his adopted homeland’s history. The first arrived in 1534, the second in 1546, and the third, expanded to feature recent history through Mary I’s notorious father King Henry VIII, in 1555. Dozens of copies of that last edition were printed in Basel. Mary’s alone, though, has the maps. Clausen estimates that even perfect iterations of atlases without them would fetch just $5,000 to $10,000.

The former Roman territory of Gallia Belgica, in northern France, as seen in Queen Mary I’s copy of “Urbinatis Anglicae Historiae Libri Vigintiseptem”(1555-58) by Polydori Vergilii. Photo courtesy of Barry Lawrence Ruderman Antique Maps Inc.

He attributes the atlas’s markup this time at the block to the “intellectual value-add” his team has contributed by researching its provenance. The family that consigned this atlas owned it since the 19th century—most likely earlier. Their surname has shifted. Still, Clausen has traced the book back to Sir John Fortelescue, a second cousin of Queen Mary I’s successor and half sister, Elizabeth I. Fortelescue taught Elizabeth Latin and cared for her library after she died, distributing manuscripts to the men who’d later start the British Library and Oxford’s Bodleian Library.

The maps’ creator, however, remains a mystery. Stylistically, they evoke a mapmaker who moved to England maybe from the Netherlands or Spain, and learned quickly. The relic is under export ban, meaning whoever buys it this spring will either have to keep it in the U.K., or make it available for a British institution to acquire.

The New York Antiquarian Book Fair is on at Park Avenue Armory, 643 Park Ave, New York, April 3–May 3.