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Description

Fine dark impression of the second edition of Giovanni's Botero's scarce map of the Western Hemisphere, which appeared in the 1598 edition of Ruscelli's Geographiae.

The map follows the workd of Giovanni Lorenzo d'Anania, who published a very similar map in Venice in 1582 (Burden 54). The map is derived from Ortelius' map of America and retains many of the characteristics, most notably the bulge on the West Coast of South America. The treatment of the unknown Southern continent is noteworthy for its attachment to Nova Guinea and narrow passage, pre-dating Le Maire's voyage.

Including this map, there are 6 maps of America with the same title and basic appearance, including D'Anania (1582), Botero (1595), Magini (1596), Magini-Keschedt (1597), Rosaccio (1595) and Botero--Giunti (1640). There are subtle distinctions in each of the plates, including size and detail, which help to distinguish the plates. Burden lists this as the Botero-Giunti edition, first appearing in 1640, but in fact this example was removed from an incomplete copy of the 1598 Ruscelli, making it an apparently unrecorded appearance of the 2nd Botero plate (distinguishable by the line around the contient).

Wide margins and a fine dark impression.

Reference
Burden 86.
Girolamo Ruscelli Biography

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.