Beschreibung:

Title: Terra Nova Author: Fries, Lorenz/ Martin Waldseemüller Place: Strasbourg Publisher: Date: 1522-[1525] Description: Woodcut map. 28.7x37.8 cm. (11¼x15") Very early map to show America, issued in the 1522 and later editions of Laurent Fries' publication of Ptolemy's Geography, being a reduced version of the Waldseemüller map of 1513, with some differences. Shown are the coast and interior of Brazil and northern South America, the east coast of Central America, Gulf of Mexico, Florida, part of the east coast of North America, Cuba, Hispañola, etc. Within South America is an engraving of natives eating each other, and an opossom. Burden notes that the 1513 map on which this map was based was "the first devoted to America to appear in an atlas... Twenty placenames are shown on the North American coastline [15 on this smaller version], largely from Portuguese sources, most notably the Cantino portolan chart of 1502 and the Caveri of c.1505. What appears to be the Gulf of Mexico illustrates possible knowledge of an unrecorded voyage before that of Alonzo Alvarez de Pineda in 1519. Similarly the Florida peninsula is shown before recorded knowledge of it could have reached Europe. Cuba is here named Isabella after the Queen of Spain and positioned further north than is actually the case." In describing the present map, Burden delineates some of the differences, "the Columbus name PARIAS found in North America, misplaced from South America, the addition of a Spanish flag over Cuba, and a scene in South America depicting cannibals and an opossum both of which had been reported by Vespucci... TERRA INCOGNITA has been replaced by TERRA NOVA, and the reference to America's discovery by Columbus is repeated..." Latin text on verso, with an engraving of natives, a bearded European (Columbus?) and a ship, along with decorative pillars and the title "Oceani occidëntalis Seu Terre Noue TABULA." This latter form identifies it as being from the 1525 edition of the Fries Ptolemy. As a final note, although this map does not show California, it does show the eastern portion of the continent, with the implication that something lay on the other side. Burden 4. Lot Amendments Condition: Slight darkening along centerfold, a touch of marginal soiling, near fine to fine. Item number: 166982