"Fretum Magellani", Mercator/Hondius

Splendid little map featuring the Strait of Magellan. The map is centered on a large, finely engraved, compass rose and further embellished with strapwork title and distance scale cartouches.

This map comes from the English edition of Mercator's Atlas Minor, which was published under the title Historia Mundi or Mercators Atlas by Michael Spark and Samuel Cartwright. After acquiring the plates to the 1607 edition of the Mercator/Hondius Atlas Minor, Sparke republished the maps with text translated into English by Wye Saltonstall. Sparke also had 41 additional maps engraved for the Historia Mundi. Most of these maps were copied from Cloppenburg's edition of Atlas Minor and are therefore a bit larger, with some signed by the engravers Jacob van Langren and Ralph Hall. These additional maps only appeared in the 1635, 1637 and 1639 editions of the Historia Mundi and are therefore quite scarce.

References: Van der Krogt (Vol. III) #9950:351.

Condition: A

A sharp impression on paper with a bunch of grapes watermark. There is light toning, a few spots of foxing, and some tiny chips and edge tears all confined to the blank margins.