World map
By PORCACCHI, Thomaso , 1590
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Mappamondo

World World maps
  • Author: PORCACCHI, Thomaso
  • Publication place: In Venetia
  • Publisher: Appresso gli heredi di Simon Galignani
  • Publication date: 1590
  • Physical description: Woodcut map
  • Dimensions: 110 by 150 mm (4.25 x 6 inches)
  • Inventory reference: 3356

Notes

This fine map of the world is one of two in the isolario engraved by Girolamo Porro, a well-known Paduan illustrator. Porro later engraved maps for the first small-format Mercator atlas and for a Ptolemy (both appearing in 1596). According to Shirley, this map on an oval projection “is a finely-executed reduction of Camocio’s large world map of 1567, one of the last in the long line of derivatives from Gastaldi’s prototype of 1546.” The map retains the imaginary southern continent ‘Terra Australis’, the existence of which was postulated on the basis that there must be a land mass in the southern hemisphere sufficiently large to balance out those in the north. Terra del Fuego is shown as part of this southern continent rather than an independent archipelago.

A map from ‘L’isole piu famose’ by Tommaso Porcacchi, a beautiful and important isolario first published in 1572. The isolario, or island book, was a genre developed in the Mediterranean over the sixteenth century as a unique blend of literature, geography and art. It combined up-to-date cartography with contemporary accounts of and information about the places it portrayed. Porcacchi’s work represents the culmination of a movement in the genre towards cartographical accuracy; ‘L’isole’ was aimed specifically at readers who ‘dello studio della geografia si dilettano’ (delight in geographical studies). ‘L’isole’ was the first isolario with maps engraved on copper.

This is this third edition of ‘L’isole piu famose’, enlarged from the original and, according to Phillips, containing 17 maps which do not appear in the 1572 original including two of the New World: Jamaica and Puerto Rico. The addition of the New World islands from the second edition onwards reflects contemporary interest in the geography of the Americas. The detailed, beautifully engraved maps show the islands of Europe and America, with context provided by the two splendid world maps (one of which is shown here) in the closing sections entitled ‘Descrizione del Mappamondo’ and ‘Discorso intorno alla carta da navigate,’ pages 193 to 20.

Bibliography

  1. Philips 3328
  2. Sabin 64105
  3. Shirley 127–28
  4. c.f. 'The World Encompassed' 86.
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