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Antwerp, 1571. A derivative of Mercator's large map published the year before, this is the first edition of Ortelius's map of the Americas. 'Americae sive Novi Orbis' provides a reasonably accurate outline of North America and improves on the representation of the St. Lawrence River that Ortelius made on his world map. However, the map shows a very narrow Pacific Ocean and situates New Guinea due south of California. Ortelius also locates Quivira too far to the west seeming to have relied on Francisco López de Gómara’s popular Historia general de las Indias (1552). Ortelius also shows Anian, a mythical kingdom that Marco Polo mentioned in his travel accounts. Before it appeared in America on this map, Anian was generally believed to be located off the coast of north Asia. Curiously, Ortelius’s great world map published just six years earlier located Anian on the Asian mainland. Ortelius was one of the first cartographers outside of Spain to adopt the place-names designated by the Spaniards explorers de Niza, Coronado and Cabrillo. The map therefore provides much detail compared to other contemporary maps. Latin text on verso. Burden's second state from the 1570 plate. A double-page engraved map with the bottom margin trimmed to a neat line just inside. The other margins are ample. Two very small (1 cm) worm holes along the fold have been restored. Overall in good condition. Burden 39. Van den Broecke 9.
ANTIQUE MAPS (1216)
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