Nuevo Mundo

- THE FIRST APPEARANCE OF THIS MAP OF THE ATLANTIC AND AMERICAS -

VERY RARE first issue of the Medina's map of the New World. Woodcut, perfect condition.

Pedro de Medina was a cleric who for a time served as librarian to the Duke of Medina-Sidonia. He was asked to prepare charts and other navigation aids by the emperor Charles V and was named cosmografo de honor in 1549.

The Arte de navigar is the seminal text on navigation in the sixteenth century, and was one of the three books on navigation carried by Drake (in the 1554 French translation). Sometimes described as a world map, it is actually limited to the countries bordering the Atlantic Ocean.

The map, one of the few printed in Spain in the sixteenth century, is in its first state, as a single block, with sixteen radiating rhumb lines. Medina's knowledge of the New World was first hand, having traveled with Cortés. Later he held the position of debriefing the returning crews from their voyages" (Burden).

The map shows the trade routes to and from Spain. The position of ships on the map indicates the outward south-westerly journey and returning journey via the Gulf Stream to the north-east.

For the first time, the Papal demarcation line dividing the Americas between Portugal and Spain is illustrated. Central America and the Isthmus of Panama are very accurately delineated, and the Yucatan is correctly shown as a peninsula. The map was reprinted in the first edition of Libro de grandezas... de España (Seville, 1548) with the lower half extended to include the Strait of Magellan. The map was later printed in Martin Cortés's Breve compendio of 1551 and Medina's Regimento de navegacion of 1552.

The Arte de Navegar was translated into German, French, English and Italian, but the original edition in Spanish is of extreme rarity. According to American Book Prices Current, only two copy appear at auction in the last forty years. The last was sold in Christie’s New York in 2008 for more than half a million $.

A PERFECT example of this important map.