A map of similar character, dated two years later, is one which is the work of Diego Ribero, a Portuguese in the service of Spain, who had been the royal cosmographer since 1523,—an office which he was to hold till his death, ten years later, in 1533. There are two early copies of this map, of which a small section is herewith given; both are on parchment, and are preserved respectively at Weimar and Rome, though Thomassy[756] says there is a third copy. The Roman copy is in the Archivio del Collegio di Propaganda, and is said to have belonged to Cardinal Borgia. The North American sections of the map have been several times reproduced in connection with discussions of the voyages of Gomez and Verrazano.[757] The entire American continent was first engraved by M. C. Sprengel in 1795, after a copy then in Büttner’s library at Jena, when it was appended to a German translation of Muñoz, with a memoir upon it which was also printed separately as Ueber Ribero’s älteste Weltkarte. The map is entitled Carta universal en que se contiene todo lo que del mundo se ha descubierto fasta agora: Hizola Diego Ribero cosmographo de su magestad: año de 1529. La Qual se divide en dos partes conforme á la capitulaçion que hizieron los catholicos Reyes de España, y el Rey don Juan de portugal en la Villa [citta] de Tordesillas: Año de 1494,—thus recording the Spanish understanding, as the map of 1527 did, of the line of demarcation. The Propaganda copy has “en Sevilla” after the date. The most serviceable of the modern reproductions of the American parts is that given by Kohl in his Die beiden ältesten General-Karten von Amerika, though other drafts of parts are open to the student in Santarem’s Atlas (pl. xxv.), Lelewel’s Moyen-âge (pl. xli.), Ruge’s Geschichte des Zeitalters der Entdeckungen, and Bancroft’s Central America (i. 146).[758]
These two maps of 1527 and 1529 established a type of the American coasts which prevailed for some time. One such map is that of which a fac-simile is given in the Cartas de Indias, called “Carta de las Antillas, seno Mejicano y costas de tierra-firme, y de la America setentrional,” which seems, however, to have been made later than 1541.[759] Another is preserved in the Ducal Library at Wolfenbüttel, of which Harrisse makes mention in his Cabots, p. 185. A significant map of this type, commonly cited as the Atlas de Philippe II., dédié à Charles Quint, is more correctly defined in the title given to a photographic reproduction,[760] Portulano de Charles Quint donné à Philippe II., accompagné d’une notice par MM. F. Spitzer et Ch. Wiener, Paris, 1875. The map is not dated; but the development of the coasts of Florida, California, Peru, and of Magellan’s Straits, with the absence of the coast-line of Chili, which had been tracked in 1536, has led to the belief that it represents investigations of a period not long before 1540. The original draft first attracted attention when exhibited in 1875 at the Geographical Congress in Paris, and shortly after it was the subject of several printed papers.[761] Major is inclined to think it the work of Baptista Agnese, and Wieser is of the same opinion; while for the American parts it is contended that the Italian geographer—for the language of the map is Italian—followed the maps of 1527 and 1529.
What would seem to be the earliest engraved map of this type exists, so far as is known, in but a single copy, now in the Lenox Library. It is a woodcut, measuring 21 × 17 inches, and is entitled La carta uniuersale della terra firma & Isole delle Indie occidētali, cio è del mondo nuouo fatta per dichiaratione delli libri delle Indie, cauata da due carte da nauicare fatte in Sibilia da li piloti della Maiesta Cesarea,—the maps referred to being those of 1527 and 1529, as is supposed. Harrisse, however, claims that this Venice cut preceded the map of 1527, and was probably the work of the same chartmaker. Stevens holds that it followed both of these maps, and should be dated 1534; while Harrisse would place it before Peter Martyr’s death in September, 1526. According to Brevoort and Harrisse,[762] the map was issued to accompany the conglomerate work of Martyr and Oviedo, Summario de la generale historia de l’Indie occidentali, which was printed in three parts at Venice in 1534.[763] Murphy, in his Verrazzano (p. 125), quotes the colophon of the Oviedo part of the book as evidence of the origin of the map, which translated stands thus: “Printed at Venice in the month of December, 1534.”
For the explanation of these books there has been made a universal map of the countries of all the West Indies, together with a special map [Hispaniola] taken from two marine charts of the Spaniards, one of which belonged to Don Pietro Martire, councillor of the Royal Council of said Indies, and was made by the pilot and master of marine charts, Niño Garzia de Loreno [sic] in Seville; the other was made also by a pilot of his Majesty, the Emperor, in Seville. Quaritch[764] says that an advertisement at the end of the secundo libro of Xeres, Conquista del Peru (Venice, 1534), shows that the map in the first edition of Peter Martyr’s Decades was made by Nuño Garcia de Toreno in Seville; but the statement is questionable. Harrisse refers to a map of Toreno preserved in the Royal Library at Turin, dated 1522, in which he is called “piloto y maestro de cartas de nauegar de su Magestad.” The American part of this last chart is unfortunately missing.[765]
Harrisse calls this Lenox woodcut the earliest known chart of Spanish origin which is crossed by lines of latitude and longitude, and thinks it marks a type adopted by the Spanish cosmographers a little after the return of Del Cano from his voyage of circumnavigation and the coming of Andagoya from Panama in 1522, with additions based on the tidings which Gomez brought to Seville in December, 1525, from his voyage farther north.
AN EARLY FRENCH MAP.