Catalog Archive
Auction 153, Lot 66

"America", Botero, Giovanni

Subject: Western Hemisphere - America

Period: 1640 (circa)

Publication: Relationi Universali di Giovanni Botero

Color: Black & White

Size:
9.8 x 6.9 inches
24.9 x 17.5 cm
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This early map of the Americas is based on Ortelius and D'Anian. The Sierra Nevadas are named and Quivira appears both as a region and a large city in North America. The towns of Marta, Zalisco and Culuacan are noted near present-day New Mexico. Another large city labeled Totonteac is shown at the top of the Mar Vermeio (Gulf of California). A wide St. Lawrence River has its headwaters in a tiny lake in the region named Saguenai, and there are no Great Lakes. The names Norinbega for New England, Virginia, Mocosa and Apalche are on the eastern seaboard. Off the coast, the imaginary islands of Frislant, Dos Demonios, Sept Cites and St. Brandain are shown. South America is shown with a bulging western coast from Ortelius, while an outsized La Plata River plunges into the continent. A massive Terra del Fuego fills the bottom of the map and is connected to an even more massive Nova Guinea, which carries a notation referring to Andrea Corsali, a 15th century Florentine explorer who described and named the Southern Cross. This example was published in I. Giunti's edition of Botero's work, with a re-engraved plate based on that from the 1598 edition, with an unidentified line encircling the Americas.

References: Burden #258.

Condition: A

A dark impression, issued folding with good margins and printer's ink residue.

Estimate: $500 - $650

Sold for: $300

Closed on 5/20/2015

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