Catalog Archive
Auction 170, Lot 70

"America", Botero, Giovanni

Subject: Western Hemisphere - America

Period: 1598 (published)

Publication: Geografia di Claudio Tolomeo Alessandrino...

Color: Black & White

Size:
9.7 x 6.8 inches
24.6 x 17.3 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, Mocosa and Apalche are on the eastern seaboard. Off the coast, the imaginary islands of Frislant, Dos Demonios, Sept Cites and St. Brendain 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 Tierra 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. State two with a line encircling the continents, engraved by Girolamo Porro, with his name added in the lower left corner. This map appeared in the 1598 edition of Girolamo Ruscelli's Geografia di Claudio Tolomeo Alessandrino...

References: Burden #86; Mickwitz & Miekkavaara #227-61.

Condition: B

Four worm tracks along centerfold have been professionally repaired and lightly disguised with pencil. Otherwise it is a crisp, clean impression.

Estimate: $450 - $550

Sold for: $400

Closed on 11/14/2018

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