“GRANATA NOVA ET CALIFORNIA.” Louvain, Belgium: Cornelius Wytfliet, c. 1597 from Descriptiones Ptolemaicae Augmentum - the only known geographic work by Wytfliet. (Image : 9 x 11 ¼’’)
Scarce original engraved map with later hand-coloring. From an atlas considered as important in the cartographic history of the New World, as Ptolemy’s maps were of the Old – the first atlas on America by Wytfliet. Reference: Burden #106, Koeman vol. 3, p 219; Wagner # 188, Wheat Vol 1, p 28).
FIRST MAP DEVOTED TO CALIFORNIA AND THE SOUTHWEST UNITED STATES. This map is “the only separate printed map of southern California and northwestern Mexico published in the 16th century” (Nebenzahl, The Compass, N28-43).
Important and scarce, this historical map is from the “first separately published atlas devoted solely to the Americas...As a compiler instead of a creator, his production has remained all the more valuable as an excellent summary of everything then known in the Spanish Netherlands concerning the New World.” (Martin & Martin, Maps of Texas and the Southwest, p.75).
This map extends from the Farallon Islands to Sinaloa, including all the Gulf of California and lower Colorado River Basin. “One of the most interesting features is the depiction of so many fabled places…most notable amonst these are the seven cities of Cibola, Septem ciuitatum Patria, shown surrounding a lake, out of which flows a river that empties into the MAR VERMEIO or Gulf of California” (Burden p. 131).
Shipped unmatted
