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Unusually Full-Margined Example
Of One of the Most Beautiful Maps of Latin America
South America/ Caribbean/ Florida.
DE BRY, T. [Frankfurt, 1592]
Americae Pars Magis Cognita. Chorographia nobilis & opulentae Peruanae Provinciae, atque Brasiliae, . . . MDXCII. .
14 1/4 x 17 3/8 inches
Very wide margins, slight fold reinforcement, minor mend at insertion point, overall an excellent example.
First state of a masterwork of engraving. The Spanish Empire in America, including the southern United States, is here shown at its approximate high water mark. The map appeared in Book III of De Bry’s Grands Voyage, the illustrated collection of accounts of the Americas that did more than any other single work to form the early European conception of the New World and its inhabitants. It was the first printed work to contain illustrations of indigenous peoples’ cultural practices. Moreover, the maps in this work are some of the most important of the early colonization period, as they incorporated data gleaned from the reports of the America’s earliest explorers and settlers.
This map is one of the finest examples De Bry’s remarkably intricate engraving. There are two elaborate, strap-work cartouches with the one at lower right surmounted by a finely rendered mapmaker’s compass. Above left and right respectively are the royal arms of Spain and France. A cherub artfully holds a banner containing the map’s title. De Bry’s training as a goldsmith no doubt helped him achieve the fine detail for which this map is justly famous.
Burden 80. |
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