Price: £1,200.00
A rare and important map from 'Atlas Curieux', engraved by C. Inselin, and based on Sanson's monumental map of 1656, with various additions and revisions. Included is a page of text from the atlas that provides fascinating detail. This landmark map is a pivotal document in the cartographic history of California and the Southwest, particularly regarding the popular notion in the 1600s that California was an island. Almost simultaneously with de Fer's publication of the first edition of this map in his Atlas Curieux of 1700, Father Kino developed a radically different theory about the geography of the Baja region and published the new data in his 1701 map of the area. Thus Kino’s map became the first to scientifically disprove the myth of "California as an Island." De Fer’s map, on the other hand, has been called the “first pirated copy” of Father Kino’s 1695–1696 map of New Mexico and the Southwest, the western coast of Mexico, and Southern California. De Fer used the “Teatro de los Trabajos Apostolicos de la Camp[ani] a de Jesus en la America Septrional” as a source of major new information about missionary and native settlements, as well as current geographical knowledge about the area including the Southwestern river systems and some southern Californian mountain ranges. This was de Fer’s earliest published version of Kino’s findings, and later it provided the model for his larger and more comprehensive “La Californie ou Nouvelle Caroline” of 1720. On the present map, California appears with an indented northern coast and is labeled "Californias ó Carolinas." Aside from the popular misconstruction of California’s geography, the de Fer map is surprisingly accurate. New Mexico is shown covered with engraved numbers from 1 to 314 which correspond to an engraved key in the top right third of the map. The key identifies the names of 314 settlements, including Santa Fe, Taos, Pecos, El Paso, and all New Mexican pueblos. Twenty-three place names on the map are new. Northern New Mexican place names and Native American pueblos are true to Pere Kino’s original and reflect his minor displacement of northern villages. This is a fascinatingly detailed map of California as an island, as well as a well-documented and accurate picture of the settlement history of New Mexico and southern Arizona. Reference: McLaughlin, California, 134
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