India Tercera Nova Tabula

Only edition of Gastaldi&#8217s important new map of Southeast Asia from Pietro Andrea Mattioli&#8217s edition of Ptolemy&#8217s La Geografia , published in Venice in 1548. Gastaldi was a brilliant theoretician, engineer and the most respected Italian Cosmographer to the Venetian Republic. Although relatively small, the maps in his Geografia were the most up-to-date maps produced prior to Abraham Ortelius&#8217s Theatrum of 1570. They were engraved on copper, which provided much finer detail than was possible with the woodcuts more commonly used for the printing of maps at the time. By the late fifteenth century, Venice had become rich from trade with the East due to its enviable position at the head of the Adriatic Sea and as a gateway to Europe. Although it did not directly participate in maritime voyages to the Orient, it became one of the centres for geographic knowledge which was often sourced directly from the many ships of different flags that came to Venice for trade. This map has a number of sources, including Gastaldi&#8217s 1546 world map and the accounts of the Italian explorer Varthema who had reached the Moluccas in 1505, disembarking on the island of Momoch (probably Ternate). In the account of his travels Itinerario de Ludouico de Varthema Bolognese, published in Rome in 1510, Varthema wrote, &#8216Here the cloves grow, and in many other neighbouring islands&#8217. Gastaldi also adds a number of the discoveries made by members of the Magellan voyage on the Elcano and Victoria, who reached the Spice Islands in 1521. Additionally, his inclusion of some specific islands suggests Portuguese sources, reflecting their active trade with the islands soon after their conquest of Malacca in 1511 and the discovery of the Spice Islands in 1512. While the Portuguese endeavoured to keep the source of their spice trade secret, the existence of Varthema&#8217s travel record demonstrates that knowledge of the islands as the source of cloves and nutmeg was known to others. Additionally, by the mid-sixteenth century, maps of the East Indies not only included the location of the Moluccas but individually named them. Nonetheless, it would not be until the end of the sixteenth century that the complete information concerning the Spice Islands, including the crucial navigational information necessary to find them, would finally be connected in the travel accounts of a young Dutchman named Jan Huygen van Linschoten. References: Burden p.21, Parry p. 69-71, Quirino p.92, Suarez (A) p.130-133, ill.fig 73, p.132-133.33