Magnum Mare del Zur cum Insula California

A highly decorative title cartouche fills the bottom right corner, depicting Poseidon, riding in a chariot drawn by Hippocamps and attended by a host of sea gods and fish-tailed beasts and a medallion portrait of Magellan. Numerous rhumb lines indicate it’s intended use as a sea chart. This elegant map of the Pacific region by Frederick De Wit extends from the Gulf of Carpentaria in the west to the Americas in the east. The discoveries of the voyage of Jacob le Maire and Willem Schouten in 1615 are shown. This voyage established Tierra del Fuego as an island and opened up a new shipping route from the Atlantic to the Pacific through the Le Maire Strait, in direct competition with the VOC, which only possessed a patent to travel to the Indies via the Cape of Good Hope and the Magellan Strait. The northern coastline of Australia is partially mapped and is portrayed as extending south from New Guinea. Parts of Van Diemen&#8217s Land and New Zealand are also shown, depicting some of the discoveries of Abel Tasman&#8217s first voyage. California is shown as a large island and according to Greek legend, California was the name given to a mythical island believed to be populated by beautiful Amazon warriors, mapmakers began using the name in the early sixteenth century to refer to the unexplored regions of the American west coast. The misconception of showing of California as an island on charts was created from the account of Father Antonio de la Ascesion of Sebastian Vizcaino’s 1602 expedition which explored the California coast. It wasn’t until 1701 that mapmakers began to show California as a peninsula and not until 1746, when Father Ferdinando Consag led an expedition to the mouth of the Colorado River, which conclusively proved the fact. To the north of Japan are both ‘Ezo’ and ‘Compagnies lant’, semi-mythical islands illustrating the uncertainty of cartographic knowledge north of Japan following the exploration of the Dutchman de Vries in 1643. The Solomon Islands and the Land of the Holy Ghost (New Hebrides) are not charted. From De Witt’s, ‘Orbis Maritimus ofte Zee Atlas’ in 1675. References Tooley map 49 pg 289, Suarez Map 95 pg 102-103