An early map of 'modern' southern Africa:  Africa Nova Tabula

Original copperplate engraved map
Uncolored as issued
125 x 172mm
Map # AF-185
$ 700
 

An uncommon map showing all of Africa from the Horn of Africa and the Bight of Benin southward to the Cape of Good Hope.

The information to produce this map was based on knowledge obtained from the Portuguese discoveries in southern Africa as well as information from the Arabs of the east coast of Africa.

Giacomo Gastaldi can be considered the foremost Italian cartographer of the 16th century along with Paolo Forlani.  From Piedmont, Gastaldi established his reputation in Venice and was cosmographer to the Republic of Venice.   Gastaldi enjoyed a productive relationship with Giovanni Ramusio, Secretary of the Venice Senate, who used Gastaldi's maps for his Navigationi et Viaggi.    This map is from Gastaldi's edition of Ptolemy,  Ptolemeo. La Geografia..., begun as early as 1542 and published in Venice in 1548. There is Italian text on verso.

This is the only edition of this map.   Ruscelli produced a slightly larger version of this map from 1561.

Reference:  Karrow, Robert W. Jr. Mapmakers of the Sixteenth Century and Their Maps. Chicago: Speculum Orbis Press, 1993. p.220-222.   Not in Norwch.

A nice addition to any collection of African maps.  This map is engraved in the typically fine style of Italian engravers of the 16th century and of Gastaldi, in particular.  The sea is stippled and the mountains are represented by "anthills".

Very Fine Condition with the following:  three very pin-size, stitch-holes along centerfold from where the map was bound into the book.