Americae Sive Novi Orbis, Nova Descriptio

Carta geografica del "Nuovo Mondo" tratta dalla grande mappa del mondo del Mercator, 1569.

Prima delle tre versioni usate da Ortelius nelle varie edizioni del suo atlante, quelle edite tra il 1570 ed il 1575.

Esemplare nel secondo stato di due con le isole Azzorre giustamente denominate Las Acores invece di Canariae insule.

Carta tratta dal Theatrum Orbis Terrarum e che è considerato il primo vero “atlante” moderno. L’opera fu pubblicata in 7 lingue e 36 edizioni, per il quale – nel 1570 - Ortelius ottenne il privilegio, ovvero una sorta di diritto d'autore che impediva ad altri cartografi di pubblicare i propri lavori. Il Theatrum rappresentava il lavoro più avanzato del lavoro della descrizione cartografica. L’Ortelius vi raccolse il sapere geografico e cartografico del suo tempo, proponendo in 147 spettacolari tavole incise l’immagine più fedele del mondo allora conosciuto e, in alcune straordinarie “carte storiche”, regioni e itinerari tratti dalla letteratura, dalla mitologia, dalla tradizione. Ortelius fu anche il primo a citare le fonti, menzionando i nomi dei cartografi nel “catalogus auctorum”. Dal 1598 al 1612 le edizioni postume del Theatrum furono realizzate dal suo collaboratore Johannes Baptiste Vrients.

“One of the most famous and easily recognised maps of America, and one that is both functional as well as decorative. As with Sebastian Münster's NOVAE INSVLAE thirty years earlier, this was widely sold throughout Europe and had a great influence on the future cartography of the New World.

The Theatrum Orbis Terrarum by Abraham Ortelius, was the first atlas produced that uniformly covered the world with similarly sized and styled maps. It contained none of the ancient maps derived from Ptolemy which were still being used extensively. All of the copperplates were cut by Frans Hogenberg. Published on 20 May 1570 it was an instant success running to four issues in the first year alone. It was expanded and improved constantly over the next forty-two years. Prior to 1570 Ortelius travelled extensively, and built up numerous contacts. It was these sources that he used to provide accurate information for his maps.

Ortelius depicts the discoveries of a number of people on this map, but the general shape of the continent is derived from Gerard Mercator's great twenty-one sheet world map of the previous year. The two of them had a close relationship and shared their knowledge openly with each other. It is recorded that they travelled together through France in 1560. One of the main noticeable features of the map is the bulbous Chilean coastline; this was not corrected until his third plate. A strategically placed cartouche hides a complete lack of knowledge of the southern waters of the Pacific. Once through the Strait of Magellan the voyager's sea route took him on an almost direct course for the East Indies. No sight had been made of a large continent but conventional wisdom had it that there had to be as much land in the southern hemisphere as in the northern. This was not fully dispelled until the second voyage of the remarkable Captain James Cook in 1772-75. The west coast of North America is shown too far west, as was common at the time. There is no new nomenclature shown.

Ortelius had three copper plates cut over the life of the atlas for the American continent. The first had developed two cracks to the top left of the plate, and upon correction for the 1575 edition immediately developed another. The second plate is very similar to this one, and was itself followed by a third one. However, the most noticeable differences are as follows:

1570 plate: The strapwork border is 7 mm. thick and of interwoven circle and diamond design. The largest ship in the Pacific is sailing westwards, and the Equator is shown with no graduations between the longitudinal marks

1579 plate :The strapwork border is 4 mm. thick and of a triangular design. The largest ship in the Pacific is shown sailing eastwards, and there now appear graduations along the equatorial line

1587 plate: Easily distinguished by the removal of the bulge to the south-western coast of South America

There are also three states of this map; an unrecorded earlier state might exist as the first has two noticeable erasures. The largest is off the South American coastline in the Atlantic, the second is to the right of the large ship in the Pacific. These were corrections by the engraver before atlas production; it is possible that proofs, or early separately sold examples, might have been in this state. They were cleared in the third state.” (Burden " The Mapping of North America II", p. 50).

Coloritura coeva, leggere abrasioni, per il resto in ottime condizioni.

Bibliografia:

Burden "The Mapping of North America II", pp. 50-52, n. 39; Van den Broecke 9.