Sumatra Ein Grosse Insel / So von den Alten Geographen Taprobana / ist Genent Worden.

Spectacular map of Sumatra, showcasing a superb woodcut of an elephant with a mahout dressed in European livery, published by Sebastian Munster. This map is one of two maps with the same title based on information from Ptolemy’s, Geographia and published by Sebastian Munster in his Cosmographia titled Sumatra Ein Grosse Insel, this one showing Sumatra which, according to Marco Polo in his Il Milione, was the largest island in the world. The text above the island includes information about the elephants of Taprobana and indicates that the island was a rich source of ivory.

Munster was the first to introduce the name Sumatra to a map. Importantly, the map also shows Portuguese influence in the area which resulted from the conquest of Malacca by Afonso de Albuquerque in December 1511. In the same year, Albuquerque discovered the source of cloves and nutmeg, the most sought after of spices and immediately sent a fleet of three ships under the command of Antonio de Abreu who engaged local Malay pilots to guide them through the Lesser Sunda Straits and onto the Banda Islands. They arrived on the islands in early 1512 and returned to Malacca with a lucrative cargo of cloves and nutmeg, thereby establishing the commercial route used by the Portuguese to the East Indies for the next eighty-five years. In using Malacca as their base in the Indies, the Portuguese were able to control maritime trade from east to west. While Malacca effectively became the distribution centre for trade goods from the East, the location of the Spice Islands remained relatively secret until the end of the sixteenth century.

While the Portuguese were the first to commercialise their discovery, they were not the first Europeans to reach the Spice Islands. There were prior discoveries, firstly by the Italian explorer Varthema who reached the Moluccas in 1505 and disembarked on the island of Momoch (probably Ternate). In his account Itinerario de Ludouico de Varthema Bolognese, published in Rome in 1510, he stated, ‘the cloves grow, and in many other neighbouring islands.’ Then on 6 November 1521, the remaining crew of Magellan’ voyage on the Elcano and Victoria reached the Spice Islands and returned to Spain on 6 September 1522 with news of their discoveries. As a result, Charles V sent an expedition in 1525 led by Garcia de Loaisa who claimed that the Moluccas were within the Spanish limits set in the Treaty of Tordesillas which was signed in 1494 and divided the newly discovered world between Spain and Portugal. With the difficulty of accurately calculating longitude, the exact placement of these set limits were continually in dispute. This issue was finally settled with the Treaty of Zaragoza in 1529, with Spain agreeing to relinquish its claims to the Moluccas upon payment of 350,000 ducats by Portugal to Spain. Loaisa on 16 May 1530 was created cardinal by Pope Clement VII and transferred him to the See of Sigüenza, where he became Bishop of Sigüenza on 23 February 1532. He was then made Archbishop of Seville on 23 May 1539, and became Grand Inquisitor in 1546, the year of his death.

References:
Parry pp.65-67, ill. p.20, Suarez (A) pp.100-101.

Collections:
National Library Australia: Bib ID 4770720