Nova, et Integra Universi Orbis Descriptio.

Oronce Fine’s famous double cordiform map of the world is acknowledged as being one of the most striking and influential world maps published in the c.16th.

The present example is state 4 of the map identified by the inclusion of the date M.D. XL (1540) in Roman numerals within the lower panel.

In all there are 6 states of the map, dated 1532, 1536, 1540, 1541 and 1555. All states are rare and as noted by Shirley, most examples are trimmed, making this example especially desirable.

The map first appeared in the 1532 Paris edition of Johann Huttich and Simon Grynaeus’ Novus Orbis Regionum (The new world), which contained a collection of travel accounts that included descriptions of the East Indies, the Holy Land, Africa and the Americas. Fine use new geometric principles for reducing the spherical earth to a two-dimensional map and became the model for cartographers prior to Mercator’s Projection. Like other cosmographers of the period Fine aimed to accommodate recent discoveries with the established geographical and astronomical principles in Claudius Ptolemy’s, Geographia.

Fine’s map is also one of the earliest printed maps to show the southern continent as a distinct landmass to counterbalance, cartographically speaking, the northern hemisphere.

Much of the right-hand (or southern) cordum is taken up with the new Terra Australis, noted as being ‘recently discovered but not yet explored.’ Beyond the tip of South America is marked the Mare magellanicum, one of the first uses of the navigator’s name in such a context. Central America contains numerous place names reflecting the conquests and explorations of Cortez in the early 1520s, but further north Fine has unambiguously made the North America continent part of the eastern extremity of Asia. Four islands make up the north polar regions. The separate island of Greenland is named, and a large promontory marked Gaccalar (supposedly Labrador) extend from the North American land mass into the Atlantic. There is a detailed floral surround to the map, two mermaids, two muscular cherubs, the French royal coat of arms and, at the head of the map, the title in a flowing banner. Oronce Fine’s map is one that deserved enlargement on to two sheets. Unfortunately, in many cases the margins of surviving copies are badly frayed as after folding once for insertion into the book they were still too wide for the binding.” (Shirley)