Narrative and Critical History of America, Vol. 4 (of 8): French Explorations and Settlements in North America and Those of the Portuguese, Dutch, and Swedes 1500-1700
History
Narrative and Critical History of America, Vol. 4 (of 8): French Explorations and Settlements in North America and Those of the Portuguese, Dutch, and Swedes 1500-1700
America -- Discovery and exploration; America -- History; United States -- History
Another popular American map by Bellero was used in the Antwerp
_Gomara_ of 1554, and in several other publications issuing from
that city.[342] It was not more satisfactory, as the annexed sketch
shows,—which indicates that even in Antwerp the full extent of
Cartier’s explorations was not suspected. Nor had Baptista Agnese
divined it in his atlas of the same year, preserved in the Biblioteca
Marciana at Venice. Our sketch is taken from the fifth sheet as given
in a photographic fac-simile[343] issued at Venice in 1881, under the
editing of Professor Theodor Fischer, of Kiel.
An elaborate portolano _Cosmographie universelle, par Guillaume
Le Testu_, and dated in 1555, is described by Harrisse[344] as an
adaptation of a Portuguese atlas, with the addition of some French
names. The northern regions of North America are called _Francia_.
[Illustration: BAPTISTA AGNESE, 1554.]
In 1556, in the third volume of Ramusio’s _Navigationi et viaggi_,[345]
Gastaldi, excelling a little his Ptolemy map of 1548,—a sketch
of which is given on p. 88,—produced his _Terra de Labrador et
Nova Francia_; while for the accounts which Ramusio now printed of
Cartier’s voyage, Gastaldi added the _Terra de Hochelaga nella Nova
Francia_,—which was simply a bird’s-eye view of an Indian camp.[346]
In the same year (1556) the map of Volpellio was not less deceptive.
Two years later (1558) we find an atlas in the British Museum, the work
of Diego Homem, a Portuguese cartographer, which seems to indicate
other information than that afforded by Cartier’s voyages. It is not
so accurate as regards the St. Lawrence as earlier maps are, but shows
additional knowledge of the Bay of Fundy, which comes out for the
first time, and is not again so correctly drawn till we get down to
Lescarbot, half a century later.
[Illustration: VOPELLIO.
Part of the northern portion of Vopellio’s cordiform mappemonde, which
appeared in Girava’s _Cosmographia_, Milan, 1556; cf. _Carter-Brown
Catalogue_, i. 200. The map is very rare; Stevens has issued a
fac-simile of it from the British Museum copy.]
Girolamo Ruscelli, in the Venice edition of Ptolemy, 1561, gave a map
which was evidently derived from the same sources as the Gastaldi, as
the annexed sketch will show.
A mere passing mention may be made of a large engraved map of
America, of Spanish origin, “Auctore Diego Gutierro, Phillipi regis
cosmographo,” dated 1562, because of its curious confusion of names and
localities in its Canadian parts.[347]
[Illustration: GASTALDI IN RAMUSIO.
Kohl, _Discovery of Maine_, p. 226 (who gives a modern rendering of
this map), puts the making of it at about 1550,—two years later than
the appearance of his Ptolemy map.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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