To His Most Serene and August Majesty Peter Alexovitz Absolute Lord of Russia &c.

To His Most Serene and August Majesty Peter Alexovitz Absolute Lord of Russia &c. This map of Moscovy, Poland, Little Tartary, and ye Black Sea &c. is most Humbly Dedicated by H. Moll Geographer

Striking large format map of Russia, Ukraine, Poland, Finland and the Baltic Countries and extending south to the Black Sea and the Balkans, with an ornate dedication cartouche to Peter the Great, including a portrait of the Czar near the bottom of the cartouche. The map includes a number of interesting annotations, most notably the note in the upper right above the cartouche which provides that Moll has drawn the map from a map prepared by Cornelis Cruis, John Thesing and Captain Pamburg, at the direction of the Czar, with improvement and corrections from Captain John Perry. The map also includes inset maps showing the course of the Wolga River, the mouth of the Don River and the area contiguous to the White Sea. Cornelis Cruis (Cruys) (1655-1727) was Vice Admiral of the Imperial Russian Navy and the first commander of the Baltic Fleet. He was born as Niels Olsen (Olufsen) in Stavanger Norway, before changing his name. Cruys lived in Amsterdam for 18 years before joining the Russian Navy. Cruys introduction to the Russian Navy was as a direct rsult of Czar Peter the Great's Grand Embassy of 1697, which included a visit to Amsterdam to study shipbuilding and related arts. With the assistance of Nicolaas Witsen, Mayor of Amsterdam, the Czar gained access to the shipyard of the Dutch East India Compnay for 4 months, where he recruited Cornelis Cruys to join the Russian Imperial Navy as Vice Admiral, where he became the primary architect of the westernization of the Russian Navy. Among other accomplishments, he made the first maps of the Don River and the Azov Sea. : Map shows Scandinavia, Baltic, Germany, Russia, Balkans, Poland, Ukraine. : Stanford copy: Minor loss of along one fold and some minor browning along fold.