Montanus, Arnoldus:

$17,500 · Offered by William Reese Company

DE NIEUWE EN ONBEKENDE WEERELD: OF BESCHRYVING VAN AMERICA EN 'TZUID-LAND.... The first edition, second issue of what Borba de Moraes appropriately calls "a classic book on America." Montanus's narrative contains a wealth of interesting maps and illustrations of the entire Western Hemisphere, accompanied by in-depth and occasionally lurid descriptions of nearly the entire New World. The work was translated into English the same year, with various alterations, by John Ogilby, but this Dutch edition is the true first.The North American section of Montanus contains notable versions of the Blaeu map of New England and New Netherland, as well as versions of the John Smith Virginia and Carolina maps. Among the engravings in the text is one of the first engraved views of New York (the very first, the Van der Donck view, appeared twenty years earlier). There is also a detailed map of Bermuda. There are also numerous beautifully detailed engravings of the cities and scenes of Mexico and the Caribbean. Much of the second half of the volume is devoted to Brazil, where the Dutch were deeply involved for decades in the 17th century, illustrated with numerous maps and views. The large double-sheet views are excellent and much copied in later publications; but, as Church comments: "The finely executed engravings of this work are especially brilliant in this, the original edition."In addition to notes on geography, flora and fauna, and ethnography, the text also includes detailed (and often

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