PORCACCHI, Thomaso.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

L'Isole Piu Famose Del Mondo. Second and best edition, which contains "much more" (Sabin) than the first edition of 1572, including 17 additional maps. Two of these, Jamaica and Porto Rico, are in the eight-map section on the New World, which also includes a reduced version of Forlani's 1565 map, the first to show America as a single geographical entity, Temistitan (Mexico), Cuba, and others.The last two maps, "Descrittione del Mappamondo," and "Discorso intorno alla Carta da navigare" are "a finely-executed reduction of Camocio's large world map of 1567... [&] a nautical map covering most of the world" (Shirley). Both show a vast southern continent "terra incognita", and the latter is accompanied by a brief navigational text with information on winds and currents. The superb engraving is the work of the joint publisher, Girolamo Porro, Paduan artist-illustrator-engraver, who illustrated the 1584 Venice edition of Ariosto's Orlando Furioso and Porcacchi's Funerali antichi di diversi Popoli et Natione, and engraved maps for Magini's 1596 edition of Ptolemy's Geographia and Mercator's Atlas Minor of the same year.Two variants have been observed in the edition, but no priority between them has been established; the present copy has p. 13, line 10 ending 'mara' and line 11 beginning 'uigliosa'.

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