Home Page About us Shipping and Returns Delivery Payment Contact us Home Page About us Shipping and Returns Delivery Payment Contact us Shop by Category Antiquarian Books Books DVD’s Everything Else Gifts/Stationery/Toys Job LotsMusic CD’s, Vinyl & Cassettes Posters and Prints Other Store Pages Home Page About us Shipping and Returns Delivery Payment Contact us Need Help? All eBay messaging contact will be answered within 24hours!: John Speed Map of the Americas (1626) – hand coloured on hand made paper Price: £19.99 Product Details : JOHN SPEED MAP OF AMERICA (1626) A nice facsimile of John Speeds 1626 map of the Americas, here reproduced in colour in the 1970s. Text to rear. – Hand coloured on hand made paper. – Light wear. – Map measures approx. 52cm x 40cm (not including borders) – Supplied rolled One of the most iconic maps of America ever made, this map is surrounded by decorative vignettes illustrating the indigenous peoples and cities of the Americas. This map is both beautiful and important. It features a number of first, including being the first atlas map to depict California as an island and to accurately depict the east coast of North America. Cartographically it follows on the earlier maps of the Dutchman Abraham Goos, the engraver, with updates to reflect the 1625 Briggs vision of an insular California. This is the first atlas map to represent California as an island. The idea of an insular California first appeared as a work of fiction in Garci Rodriguez de Montalvos c. 1510 romance Las Sergas de Esplandian, where he writes Know, that on the right hand of the Indies there is an island called California very close to the side of the Terrestrial Paradise; and it is peopled by black women, without any man among them, for they live in the manner of Amazons. Baja California was subsequently discovered in 1533 by Fortun Ximenez, who had been sent to the area by Hernan Cortez. When Cortez himself traveled to Baja, he must have had Montalvos novel in mind, for he immediately claimed the Island of California for the Spanish King. By the late 16th and early 17th century ample evidence had been amassed, through explorations of the region by Francisco de Ulloa, Hernando de Alarcon and others, that California was in fact a peninsula. However, by this time other factors were in play. Francis Drake had sailed north and claimed New Albion (identified here on the northwest coast of California Island) near modern day Washington or Vancouver for England. The Spanish thus needed to promote Cortezs claim on the Island of California to preempt English claims on the western coast of North America. Henry Briggs, an English mathematician, began promoting the idea of an insular California in 1622, citing the journals of Friar Antonio de la Ascension, who accompanied the 1602-03 Sebastian Vizcaino expedition. The significant influence of the Spanish crown on European cartographers caused a major resurgence of the Insular California theory. Just before this map was made Eusebio Kino, a Jesuit missionary, traveled overland from Mexico to California, proving conclusively the peninsularity of California. Even so, it was ultimately a 1747 royal decree from King Ferdinand VII of Spain that finally forced cartographers to give up on the alluring idea. Other elements of interest in North America are the complete absence of the Great Lakes – which in 1626 had yet to be conceived of by any European cartographers. The Straits of Anian appear tenuously in the extreme northwest, just above California. Just east of the o in California, on the continental mainland, there is a curious ghosted in lake called the Lagueo de Oro. We have found no references or explanation for this. None of the legendary kingdoms of gold, Quivara, Teguayo, Cibola, etc. are noted. The western portions of the Hudson Bay are unmapped – suggestive of their unexplored status. The addition of Long Island and Boston, in notably darker print, are important updates over the earliest editions. South America offers much of interest including the mythical Lake Parimia, in Guiana. The legend of Parima is associated with the English adventurer Sir Walter Raleighs search for El Dorado. Believing El Dorado to lie in the northern part of the Amazon, Raleigh sailed down the Orinoco River just before the onset of the rainy season. Reaching a remote tribal village, Raleigh noted canoes arriving bearing gold, silver, and other treasures. Asked where the gold came from, the natives replied, Manoa, the term for the tribe to which the river traders belonged. Manoa, the natives claimed could be reached following a long river voyage southward to a Great Lake, called Parima. Raleigh and his associates immediately associated Manoa and Lake Parima with the golden kingdom of El Dorado, though they never visited the city or lake. Subsequent maps, including this one, mapped el Dorado and Lake Parima in this location for several hundred years. Both Raleigh and the natives were describing an actual event known to occur annually in the region. Rains would annually swell the Amazon and Orinoco river systems creating a linkage in the Rupununu flood plain, which, during heavy rains, can resemble a massive lake. The Manoa were a large and populous trading nation active in pre-colonial days whose vast empire, based in the Amazon Basin, extended form the Andes to the Orinoco. Curiously, in addition to noting the city of Manoa on Lake Parima, DAnville also correctly maps the center of the ancient Manoan civilization between the Amazon tributaries Rio Negro and Rio Yapura. Sadly the Manoa and many of the other populous South American indigenous nations noted by the earliest explores to the region vanished, brought low by European epidemics. Another mythical lake, Eupana, appears further south connecting the Rio de la Plata and the Paraguay River to the R. Real, thus turning eastern Brazil into an island. This is a update over many earlier maps which connected Eupana directly to the Amazon. Far in the south Speed presents us ith another anomaly, the Straits of Le Maire, which separates Tierra de Fuego from another mysterious stretch of land labled States Land. The is in fact the modern island of Isla de los Estados, the southeastern most point in South America. Jacob le Maire and his pilot Willem Schouten passed to between this island and Tierra del Fuego on their 1615 voyage around Cape Horn and into the Pacific. In the high Arctic, near Iceland and Greenland, the supposed islands of Frisland and Brasil are noted. Frisland is little more than a double mapping of Iceland. Brasil, also known as Hy-Brasil, is a phantom island north Atlantic just west of Ireland. In Irish myths it was said to be cloaked in mist, except for one day every seven years, when it became visible but still could not be reached. Little is known of this orgins of this myth, but it appears on maps in various forms from about 1325. The last known appearance was in 1865 when it appeared on a nautical chart as Brasil Rock. Some speculate that it may be an early reference to Porcupine Bank, a shoal in the Atlantic Ocean about 200 kilometres (120 mi) west of Ireland. Speeds map of America is especially noteworthy for its surrounded vignettes. To either side of the map proper there are various vignettes illustrating the indigenous peoples of the America. These includes natives of Greenland, Virginia, Florida, Mexico, New England, Peru, Brazil, and Tierra del Feugo.n Along the top of the map there are eight city views: Havanna, Santo Domingo, Cartagena, Mexico City, Cuzco, the isle of Moca, Rio de Janeiro, and Olinda. . John Speed (1542 – 1629) was an important English historian and cartographer active in the early 17th century. Speed was born in Fardon, Cheshire and apprenticed under his father as a tailor. Though his heart was never in tailoring, Speed dedicated himself to this profession until he was about 50 years old. During all the time, Speed dedicated his spare time to research as amateur historian and mapmaker – even preparing several maps for Queen Elizabeth. In London, Speeds interest in history lead him to join the Society of Antiquaries. Eventually he befriended the wealthy Sir Fulke Greville, who sponsored his researches and eventually freed him from the haberdashery profession. Working with William Camden, Speed eventually published his 1611 Historie of Great Britaine. Though this history itself was amateurish and of minimal importance, Speeds inclusion of numerous maps of British Cities and town was seminal. In many cases these plans were the first maps ever issued of their respective subjects. Later, turning his attention more fully to Geography, Speed published the magnificent atlas Theatre of the Empire of Great Britaine and, just prior to his death, the 1627 A Prospect of the Most Famous Parts of the World. These were the first British world atlases and have a landmark position in the history of cartography. These atlases continued to be published well after Speeds death and, one of the most famous editions, 1676, was published by Basset and Chiswell. About us Shipping and Returns Payment Contact Us We’re a UK based company who stock a wide range of new and collectable books as well as unusual and unique gifts, dvd’s, greetings cards and lots more! 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