This is the very first map of South America alone. It is found in Giacomo Gastaldi’s edition of Ptolemy’s ‘Geographia’. The atlas is considered the most important printed between Martin Waldseemuller’s edition of the same and Abraham Ortelius’ ‘Theatrum Orbis Terrarum’ in 1570. It was the first to contain regional maps of the American continent and earned the epithet from Nordenskiold that it was “the very first atlas of the New World”. It is also the first pocket atlas to be published and the first to use copper plate engravings.

The cartography is derived from his own separately published world map from 1546. It records the early explorations carried out by the Spanish and the Portuguese. Although the ‘R. de la placa’ was first explored by the Portuguese as early as 1512-13, it was the voyage of Sebastian Cabot from 1526 who named the river as we know it today. It was his acquisition of silver trinkets which inspired him to name it ‘Rio de la Plata’ (River of Silver).

Two more recent explorations are not recorded yet. In 1541 Pedro Gutierrez de Valdivia (1497-1553) had pushed south along the west coast and founded Santiago, Chile. Here the region remains devoid of nomenclature. Potosi had only just been made a mining town in 1545 and is not yet displayed. The great cities of Peru which had already been conquered are included. The infamous brutal assassination of Francisco Pizarro (1478-1541) had occurred a few years earlier in 1541.

In 1541-42 the River Amazon was incredibly traversed by Francisco de Orellana (1511-46) travelling from Quito in Peru in search of the mythical city of El Dorado he reached the mouth of the Amazon. Here the river is named ‘R. maragnon’, now applied to the principal source of it. It is depicted flowing southwest to north east as first shown on his world map of 1546.

Giacomo Gastaldi (c.1500-66) was born in Villafranca, Piedmont, but had settled in Venice by 1539. He began as an engineer to the Venetian Republic, then a powerhouse of commerce and trade. He then became their Cosmographer. He sought the most up to date geographical information available and became one of the greatest cartographers of the sixteenth century. Provenance: Richard B. Arkway Inc. 1996. Juan and Peggy Rada Collection. Adams (1967) P2234; refer Burden (1996) nos. 16 & 17; Karrow (1993) pp. 216-49 (particularly pp. 220-2); Nordenskiöld (1889) pp. 112 & 122; Shirley (1993) no. 85; Shirley (2004) T.Ptol 9a.