Nova Totius Terrarum Orbis Geographica ac Hydrographica Tabula. Auct. Henr: Hondio

Superb, double-hemisphere world map by one of the most famous mapmakers and an icon of the Golden Age of Dutch mapmaking.

This was the earliest map published in an atlas, with a date imprint that records the discoveries of Carstensz on the eastern side of Cape York Peninsula in 1623. Although the discovery of this section of the coastline had been previously made by Jansz sailing on the Duyfken in 1606, the earliest record of that voyage on a map appears on Jansson’s Indiae Orientalis Nova Descriptio published in 1633, which has Duyfkens Eylant, on the southern coast of New Guinea.

The map is decorated in each corner with portraits of Ptolemy, Hondius, Mercator and Caesar, while at top is a highly embellished celestial globe with festoon and below the spheres, a seated figure of Europa receiving gifts from Africa, Asia and America, reflecting the dominance of the European maritime powers. On either side the four elements Fire, Air, Earth and Water are depicted, while three further decorative panels within the hemispheres, one titled America, describes the discovery of the continent by Christopher Columbus in 1499.

For the first time, an eager public were presented with the recent discoveries made by the VOC of the South Land. Hondius had published an earlier separately issued world map between 1622-1629, which included  the Dutch discoveries on the west Australian coast but surprisingly had removed Terra Australis Incognita. It was one of the first to remove the mythical land from a world map, although Hondius renders Terra Australis Icognita with faintly engraved lines.

California is erroneously shown as an island, a myth created from Father Antonio de la Ascension’s account of Sebastian Vizcaino’s 1602 expedition to explore the Californian coast. It wasn’t until 1701 that mapmakers began to show California as a peninsula.

From the Latin edition of the Mercator – Hondius’s Atlas Sive Cosmographicae Mediationes.

References:

Allen p.70-75, ill. p.70-71, Clancy p.74, ill.map 6.2, Koeman 1:203 (1), Kissajukian p.30, ill.28, Schilder 39,ill.321, Shirley 336, ill.pl.256 p.360, Whitfield ill.p.75.