Tierra del Fuego, however, is part of this southern landmass. Most contemporaries of Ortelius surmised that New Guinea was a promontory of a huge southern continent. On his 1564 world map, Ortelius explains that the Piccinacoli place name came from Andrea Corsali, an Italian explorer.Īnother notable observation about New Guinea is that it is disconnected from Terra Australis. Ortelius also includes an alternative name for New Guinea, Terra de Piccinacoli, which reveals a further source. This suggests that Ortelius was continuously updating his maps based on new sources and reinterpretations of old sources, showing his never-ending process of compilation and research. These were made only two years before the first state of this map, yet on the former New Guinea is an island shaped differently than on this example, and on the latter New Guinea is not an island at all. New Guinea is massive and appears very different as compared to Ortelius' world map of 1587 and his map of America, also of 1587. However, the Dutch and the English would join the trade in growing numbers in the decade following this map’s initial creation. To the south are the Moluccas and the Philippines, already the sites of intense European focus with the Spanish in the latter and the Portuguese vying to control trade with the former. The Jesuits tried to enter China in 1552, again led by Xavier, but they succeeded in gaining more permanent entry only in the early 1580s, led by Matteo Ricci. In the region of China, as also of Japan and the neighboring isles, many have been won for the Christian faith by the fathers of the Society of Jesus, going to the settlements in the new Indies, as a result of their efforts.įrancis Xavier, a Jesuit, entered Japan in 1549, and he began to convert Japanese people to Christianity. Tucked between Japan and North America is a block of text which translates to: This could be a reference to Hokkaido or to a chimerical island in the North Pacific. To the north is a large island supposedly rich in gold, Isla de Plata. Japan is mis-projected, revealing how little was known about the geography of the archipelago at this time. Scholars debate which is truly the first map of the Pacific although, because no example of the original 1589 Hondius/Le Clerk has been discovered, this map retains primacy. This map and Hondius/Le Clerc's map of 1589 (known only in the 1602 edition) have a curious and not fully understood relationship. The treatment of America shown here, and most notably the Pacific Northwest area, is reminiscent of Jodocus Hondius' portrayal of the continent. Although he never found the cities or the gold, the name stuck on maps of southwest North America, wandering from east to west. In 1539, Coronado wandered over what today is Arizona and New Mexico, eventually heading to what is now Kansas to find the supposedly rich city of Quivira. Quivira was common on maps of North America of the time and refers to the Seven Cities of Gold sought by the Spanish explorer Francisco Vasquez de Coronado in 1541. Tucked into the label for North America, Americae Septemtrionalior Pars, is another place name, Quivira. North America mushrooms in the north, stretching as far west as New Guinea, which is also of grandiose size. However, methods for measuring longitude were still uncertain in the late-sixteenth century, and Ortelius, dependent on information brought back by navigators, was working from a limited data set. Ortelius’ Pacific, while vast, shows a much-smaller body of water than the Pacific turned out to be. The text on the verso of this edition of the map is in English, one of only 300 copies printed in 1606. It was featured in Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, the first modern atlas. Rare English Edition of The First Map of the Pacific Ocean from the First Modern Atlasįine example of the English Edition of Ortelius' “ Maris Pacifici”, the first stand-alone map of the Pacific ever printed.
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