Hispaniae Novae Sivae Magnae Recens Et Vera Descriptio 1579.

Famous c.16th map by Abraham Ortelius of western New Spain (Mexico), showing the recently-created Spanish settlements, many rivers, and large lakes, including Lake Chapala and a mythical sea with islands in the northwest.

The map is heavily decorated, with a huge title cartouche dominating the upper right corner. The cartouche depicts interwoven pieces and is adorned with the fierce heads of creatures, somber faces, and a devil’s leering visage in the top center. It surrounds the title, which translates to, “A recent and true representation of new or large Spain 1579.”

Another cartouche in the lower left corner translates to, “To the reader; the beginning of the longitude on this map we have not, in the Ptolemaic fashion taken from the Canary Islands towards the East, but from the Spanish meridian in Toledo towards the West.” Ortelius’ atlas, the first of its kind, was also part of a new cartography that deviated from the Ptolemaic system, or rather that had to augment the Ptolemaic grid that only contained Africa, Asia, and Europe.

The lands depicted are thick with place names; there are so many, in fact, that some had to be indicated with a letter and named in lists at sea. Another list of names is in a rectangular cartouche in the bottom right corner. Two detailed ships are sailing in the western ocean. On land, cities and towns are marked with dots, a building, or a cluster of buildings according to their size and importance. Squares with a dot in the middle, most in the northeast, mark the location of Spanish barracks. A note there reads, “The encampments of the Spanish, where their armed soldiers roam.”

From, Abraham Ortelius from the first French edition of Theatrum orbus terrarum.

This edition is identified by the French text on the verso; the plate number 6 at lower right, last line is left aligned, in cursive script like the entire text: “langue Italienne”.

From Ortelius, A. Theatrum orbus terrarum, Antwerp.