1579 Ortelius Map of Florida, Peru, Colombia and the Gulf Coast of Mexico

This is a beautiful, wide-margined example of Ortelius' 1584 engraving, including the first specific map of Florida, the earliest specific map of Peru, and the first map focusing on the Guastecan province of Mexico. The map is a prime example of Ortelius' strength not only as a mapmaker but also as a compiler. All these maps combined here are relevant to each other in that they all derive from Spanish sources, and reveal parts of the Spanish Empire in America, despite Spain forbidding the production and dissemination of such maps. That two of these maps credit specific Spanish sources suggests that Ortelius enjoyed an open connection with a member of the Spanish bureaucracy. Antwerp was part of the Spanish Empire at the time, but it is certainly testimony of Ortelius's far-reaching network of contacts throughout Europe that he was able to obtain maps such as these for publication.

The First Collectible Florida Map

While overshadowed in this composition, the upper-right-hand panel of the engraving is of enduring importance in the mapping of North America, being the first printed map specifically of Florida. Cumming hails it as

One of the half-dozen most important mother-maps of southeastern North America. This map probably had more influence than any other map in establishing the subsequent conception of Florida as including that part of the present United States from the peninsula of Florida northward to or beyond the Mississippi.

Its depiction of the region's river systems, and the outline overall, would provide the template for most maps of the American southeast well into the seventeenth century. Ortelius credited this map to Géronimo de Chaves, the Cosmographer Royal to Philip II of Spain, and the chief cartographer of the Casa de Contratacion - the bureaucracy in charge of the administration of Spain's sprawling overseas empire. The map draws on the details of De Soto's 1539-42 expedition. The lack any detail from any of the French or Spanish forays along the Atlantic coastline in the 1560s may be the result of information being suppressed by the Spanish source: the French effort to establish a colony at the St. Johns River in 1564, and the destruction and massacre by Pedro Menéndez de Avilés of that colony would not have been eagerly disseminated by the Spanish.

Revealing the Gold-Producing Regions of Peru

This map, to the 16th century reader, would have commanded more attention by far than the Florida map which attracts most modern collectors. This map - whose title translates to 'map of the gold producing region of Peru' - displays Spain's sources of gold in Colombia and silver in Bolivia: from Potosi in the south to the essential Spanish port of Cartagena in the north. The map includes two islands in the extreme lower left, even into the map's border (S. Felicis and S. Nabor), and notes their discovery in 1574. (The presence of this date appears to confuse some catalogers, who list the map with this date.) The map also includes the Galapagos Islands. While these appear on Ortelius' map the western hemisphere, this is the first map to include the islands at this narrow scale. Ortelius attributes the map to Didaco Mendezio, whose precise identity is not known. He is sometimes identified as philologist Diego Hurtado de Mendoza, (1503-1575) despite his never having been to the Americas. While his elder brother, Antonio de Mendoza y Pacheco, had been the Viceroy of New Spain and later Peru, Antonio's death in 1552 makes Hurtado de Mendoza's connection to Peru seem a tenuous one. Both Ortelius and Hurtado de Mendoza, however, appear to have been correspondents with Juan Lopez de Velasco (c. 1530 – 1598) the chief chronicler of the Casa de Contratación, from whom it is possible that the map ultimately came. Peruvian historiography suggests that it is more likely that 'Didaco Mendezio' was one Diego Méndez, chaplain of the Monastery of the Incarnation in Lima, and official cartographer for the viceroy of Peru. Virtually nothing else is known historically of the man, however, and the political and nationalistic desire of Peruvian historians to have ownership of the country's first mapping cannot entirely be ignored.

While all three maps bear elegant cartouche engraving, this map is the most elaborately decorated, featuring a fine sailing ship off the coast near the Tropic of Capricorn, and a galley bristling with soldiers near the Equator.

The Northeastern Reaches of New Spain

The third panel of this engraving is a map of the Guastecan region, whose name is taken from the indigenous Huastec people. The map covers the Gulf coast fromAlba Insula and Insula Luporum (possibly Arrecife Blanquilla and Arrecife Medio) in the south, to the Rio de las Palmas in the north. Thus, the coastline shown is contiguous with that of La Florida, whose coverage of the Gulf coast ends at that river. The Panuco region on the map in particular is depicted accurately, especially the system of lagoons around Tampico. The map - as with the map of Culiacan appearing in 1579 - can be construed as an extension of the map of New Spain introduced to the Theatrumin 1579 - whose author, like the present map, is unknown. The part of Guastecan illustrated here, from about 22 degrees to 25 north and from 104 degrees to 100 longitude, falls in the area of the general New Spain map filled with an elaborate cartouche. The specific connection between the two maps, however, is sufficiently indistinct that it is unlikely they share an author. The inclusion of the Rio de las Palmas on both maps suggests that those two maps share a source and it seems likely that Chiaves produced both the Florida and Guastecan maps.

Publication History and Census

The map was produced for inclusion in Ortelius' Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, first appearing in 1584 editions of the work. Based on the verso text, this first state example can be identified as having been included in the 1592 Latin edition of Ortelius' atlas. Van den Broecke estimates that approximately 5424 copies of this map in all editions were printed, and it is fair to assume that perhaps ten percent of these have survived in one form or another. The map is well represented in institutional collections, and it appears on the private market with some regularity, but examples of this quality have become difficult to find.