America with those known parts in that unknowne world both people and manner of buildings discribed and inlarged by I.S. Ano

Si tratta di una delle più emblematiche carte d'America mai prodotte, presentata qui nel suo secondo stato, con l'aggiunta di Boston, Conectacut, Lon Ile, Mary land and Carolina.

La mappa è di grande importanza perché vanta tutta una serie di "primati": è la prima mappa inserita in un atlante a raffigurare la California come un'isola, e la prima a rappresentare con esattezza la costa orientale nord americana.

Cartograficamente è basata sulle prime mappe dell'olandese Abraham Goos, ma segue gli aggiornamenti della mappa di Henry Briggs del 1625, in cui appunto la California ha una forma insulare.

E' di rilievo la completa assenza dei Grandi Laghi - che nel 1626 dovevano ancora essere concepiti dai cartografi europei. Non è riportato nessuno dei regni leggendari: Quivara, Teguayo, Cibola, ecc sono noti. Nel Sud America è riportato il leggendario Lago Parime, nella Guiana, associato al mito di El Dorado; più a sud il mitico lago Eupana.

Un'altra particolarità, è l'indicazione dello Stretto di Le Maire, che separa la Terra del Fuoco da un altro misterioso istmo chiamato "States Land", che in effetti corrisponde alla moderna Isola degli Stati.
Il navigatore Jacob Le Maire aveva attraversato il canale tra le due isole, a cui darà il suo nome, durante la sua navigazione intorno a Capo Horn e nel Pacifico, nel 1615.

Nell'Artico, sono riportate le due isole fantasma di Frislandia e Brasil, anche nota come Hy Brasil, di cui si narrava che fosse completamente avvolta dalla nebbia e che fosse visibile solo una volta ogni sette anni. L'ultima mappa a riportare l'isola del Brasil, come Brazil Rock, è una carta nautica del 1865.

Splendida mappa, incisa da Anraham Goos per John Speed.

La bella mappa è impreziosita da vignette che la decorano su tre lati e illustrano i popoli indigeni, mentre le vignette del margine superiore contengono vedute di città tra le quali Avana, Città del Messico, Rio de Janeiro, Cusco, e altri importanti insediamenti del Sud America.

“This desirable map is the first published in an atlas to depict California as an island, and an accurate east coast of North America, particularly between Chesapeake Bay and Cape Cod. John Speed was a historian, but his most famous book is the Theatre of the Empire of Great Britaine, first published in 1611. This was an atlas of the British Isles that appeared in many editions. Before his death he produced A Prospect of the Most Famous Parts of the World. Although published separately it is most often found bound with the Theatre This work was the first general atlas of the world produced in England. For these maps, as with those earlier, Speed looked to the Low Countries, the center of the European map trade at the time, to have them engraved. This particular one was the work of Abraham Goos, who had spent time in London like many of the Dutch engravers.

Goos drew on his engraving of North America in 1624, and the Briggs 1625, to depict California as an island once more. He was the only Dutch cartographer to do so for some considerable time. There are five fewer placenames in California than the Briggs. However, like his earlier one he includes a similar faint north- west coastline and Strait of Anian. Brasil and Frisland, remnants from the sixteenth century, make a stubborn appearance in the North Atlantic. The fledgling colonies of Plymouth in New England, and lames Citti in Virginia, are both recognised. Decorating the whole are three attractive borders. The two sides illustrate the natives of the continent, the left bears those of the north, and the right those of the south. Despite the map's obvious attention to the English presence in North America, none of the eight towns represented in the third are from that part. This is owing to the relative lack of any contemporary views to draw upon.

The 1627 edition was published by George Humble, who reissued it in 1632. After his death in 1640, his eldest son, William, continued with an edition in 1646. It then appears that it was issued irregularly during the early 1650s still bearing a 1646 title page. Editions of the Theatre..., dated to between 1650 and 1654, are extremely rare. In about 1658-59 William Garrett acquired the plates and sold them on to Roger Rea, both the elder and younger. They updated this plate with the addition of Boston, Long Ile and other English nomenclature, and altered the imprint. Ashley Baynton-Williams has drawn the author's attention to an example of the map with the geographic alterations, but still bearing the Humble imprint. The Prospect was issued in 1662, and accompanied the British atlas until the death of one of the Reas in 1665, probably of the plague that was ravaging London at the time. This edition was largely destroyed in the Great Fire of London in 1666.

The plates were then acquired by Thomas Bassett and Richard Chiswell, who in 1676 published the most often seen edition. Sometime before 1690 they passed into the hands of Christopher Browne, possibly through Robert Walton whose stock Browne largely acquired. The Virginia and Maryland, map from the 1676 edition exists in a later state with Browne's imprint, but no example of the America in such a state is known. In the 1980s the British Library acquired a proof example of the Bermuda map which lacked the imprint of George Humble. This could suggest that these were added by another hand, after delivery of the copperplates to London.” (Burden " The Mapping of North America", p. 269).

Incisione su rame, bella coloritura coeva, margini sottili, in ottimo stato di conservazione.

Bibliografia:

Burden "The Mapping of North America", pp. 269-270, n. 217; McLaughlin 3; Tooley p113.