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A Sterling Example of the Fries Edition
Of the First Map Specifically of the Americas
Americas/ Florida.
WALDSEEMULLER, M./ FRIES, L. [Lyons, 1535]
Untitled Woodcut Map of the Americas.
11 1/4 x 14 7/8 inches
Fine hand color; fine condition.
A pristine example of Fries’s more elaborate edition of Waldseemuller's landmark "Tabula Terre Nove" (1513), the first separate, printed map of America. Although the Fries edition is geographically very close to Waldseemuller’s, it did make a number of meaningful changes that indicate a greater familiarity with the America and signal important shifts in attitude concerning who deserved credit for its discovery. Suggestive of the first point is a detail such as calling South America “Terra Nova” as opposed to “Terra Incognita,” as it appears on the Waldseemuller version. This indicates greater certainty that America was indeed a new continent rather than a part of Asia, as was generally held up to the time of the first Waldseemuller edition of the map of 1513. Other changes by Fries include a new and prominent inscription concerning Columbus crediting him with the initial discovery of America, new vignettes of cannibalistic Indians and of an opossum, a Spanish flag planted in Cuba, and corrected northern latitude numbers.
Waldseemuller’s 1513 edition of this map is likely the earliest acquirable map to show the Florida peninsula, making the Fries edition, which first appeared in 1522, one of the earliest maps to do so as well. Although Florida was not officially “discovered” until 1513 by Ponce de Leon, it is known that the Spanish had earlier made several trips to the mainland in search of slaves. Moreover, the shape and location of what would be Florida on the Waldseemuller and Fries maps are highly suggestive of geographic reality.
Of considerable importance, the text on the back of the map contains a strongly worded though futile rejection of the use of “America” for the New World; significantly, the name does not appear on the maps itself. A regressive alteration on the map is Fries' moving "Parias," Columbus' name for the part of South America he explored, to North America.
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