Fossa Eugeniana canal between Meuse and Rhine – Pieter Schenk and Gerard Valck, c. 1700

THE LAND BETWEEN MEUSE AND RHINE WITH THE PLANNED FOSSA EUGENIANA CANAL

“Fossa Eugeniana” copper engraving of the area between the Meuse and Rhine rivers, first published by Johannes Janssonius, here in an edition by Pieter Schenk and Gerard Valck from around 1700. With original hand colouring. Verso: blanc. Size.: 37  x 49,2 cm.

This map depicts the ambitious but never completed canal project Fossa Sanctae Mariae (Canal of Saint Mary), later more commonly known as Fossa Eugeniana, and in Dutch also referred to as the Nieuwe Grift (“New Canal”).

The canal was conceived during the Eighty Years’ War in 1626–1627 at the initiative of Isabella Clara Eugenia, Spanish governor of the Netherlands. Construction began under the supervision of Count Hendrik van den Bergh.

The engraving documents the planned canal route between the Rhine near Rheinberg (on the right side of the map) and the Meuse near Venlo (on the left).

Its purpose was to create a navigable waterway that would allow Spanish troops and supplies to travel from the Rhine to the Meuse without relying on the unsafe and Republic-controlled Waal river route. Along the canal, fortifications and redoubts were built at regular intervals. These military structures are clearly visible on the map as red star-shaped forts along the trajectory. The project also had economic aims: through the Fossa Eugeniana, the Spanish hoped to create a rival trade route that would undermine the Dutch Republic’s commercial dominance.

In the end, the canal remained unfinished. Of the planned 60 kilometres, only part was actually dug. Work was halted in 1630 due to military setbacks, lack of resources, and internal political tensions within the Spanish Netherlands.

The map is richly illustrated with cartouches, coats of arms, and allegorical figures, including the coats of arms of the Duchy of Guelders and the Duchy of Cleves (upper left and right). The river gods of the Meuse and Rhine in the lower left cartouche extend their hands toward one another, but do not quite meet –  a poetic symbol of the canal’s incompletion.

Today, traces of the canal can still be found in the landscape of northern Limburg and western Germany, notably near Geldern and Issum. The Fossa Eugeniana remains a rare and fascinating relic of the military infrastructure of the Habsburg Netherlands –  a monument to strategic ambition, but also to logistical overreach.

Price: Euro 350,-