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A nice example of the scarce third edition of Ruscelli's map of South America, extending from Labrador to Florida.
The map is based upon a 1548 map of the same title published in Giacomo Gastaldi's La Geografia. One of the earliest obtainable maps of South America.
The map was first issued in 1561. The plate was revised in 1574 and again in 1598. The 1598 rework can be distinguished by the inclusion of a sailing ship in the lower right corner.
Girolamo Ruscelli (1500-1566) was a cartographer, humanist, and scholar from Tuscany. Ruscelli was a prominent writer and editor in his time, writing about a wide variety of topics including the works of Giovanni Boccaccio and Francesco Petrarch, Italian language, Italian poetry, medicine, alchemy, and militia. One of his most notable works was a translation of Ptolemy’s Geographia which was published posthumously.
There is limited information available about Ruscelli’s life. He was born in the Tuscan city of Viterbo to a family of modest means. He was educated at the University of Padua and moved between Rome and Naples until 1548, when he moved to Naples to work in a publishing house as a writer and proofreader. He remained in the city until his death in 1566.
