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Contemporary vellum; heavily tooled with a central medallion of a golden castle at the heart. Spine rebacked saving the original spine. , Joannes or Johannes De Laet (Latinized as Ioannes Latius) (1581-1649) was a Dutch geographer and director of the Dutch West India Company in 1620, an office he retained for the rest of his life. The city of Leiden sent him as an elder-delegate to the great Synod of Dort (1618?1619. De Laet was the first to use expression derivatives developed later; i.e. ?Manhattes?, ?Manhatans? and ?Nieuvv-Amsterdam? in-text; ?Manbat tes? and ?N. Amsterdam? on his NOVA ANGLIA map to describe the recently founded New York; and ?Noordt Rivier? and ?Zuyd? ?Rivier? for the Hudson and Delaware rivers. The first edition, published in Dutch in 1625 as ?Nieuwe Wereldt ofte Beschrijvinghe van West-Indien, uit veelerhande Schriften ende Aen-teekeningen van verscheyden Natien?, was followed by the second, the present work, in 1630, which was greatly improved due to its four additional maps and illustrations depicting animals and plants indigenous to America. In terms of pagination and the maps in our work, they are congruent with John Carter Brown Library?s copy. Concerning this work and the following maps in particular, Burden states: "Considerable effort went into the text and maps of this work, which was the most accurate description of the Americas available at the time. It is arguably the finest published in the seventeenth century. The exhaustive research involved de Laet reading all of the published and manuscript material that he could find. For the cartographic work he had much to call on, being a director of the recently formed Dutch West India Company in charge of all Dutch interests in America and Africa. He therefore had access to the latest geographic knowledge. He drew upon the fine talents of Hessel Gerritsz, the official cartographer to the Company since 1617. Gerritsz attained this post before Willem Blaeu under whom he was apprenticed, and who was his senior by ten years. "The maps were some of the first to depart from the heavier style of the Mercator and Ortelius period. This more open style of engraving was one that both Blaeu and Janssonius would use in their atlases. The first edition of the book contained ten maps which, with the exception of this one [the NOVA HISPANIA. // NOVA GALICIA. // GVATIMALA. - Leiden 1625], concentrated on South America. There were none of North America until the second edition in 1630. Although many maps had been produced of New Spain, few extended north into the area of present-day Texas. The Rio Grande is here still named the R. Palmas. The B. del Spiritu Santo possibly represents the Mississippi River. Some authorities have questioned this usual assumption. On the west coast of Florida, we find the landing place of Juan Ponce de Leon. The delineation of the coastlines, particularly of the Gulf of Mexico and the north-west coast of Mexico, as the most accurate to date. The map appeared in the subsequent editions in Dutch, 1630, Latin, 1633, and French, 1640. In all these there is no text on the reverse."(Burden: 215, p.267) Re: De Laet's AMERICAE// sive// INDIAE OCCIDENTALIS// Tabula Generalis: "The first of these maps was a general one of the continent. Its most interesting feature is that although we know de Laet had seen maps of California as an island, he relies on the more trustworthy accounts, such as Herrera, in depicting a peninsular form. The map has the best west coast delineation to date. He also does not get drawn into the debate about the North West Passage, preferring to cut his map short of these latitudes. It appeared in the subsequent editions in Latin, 1633, and French, 1640. In all these there is no text on the reverse." (Burden: 229, p.284/5).Reference: General: Alden & Landis 30/88; Borba de Moraes: 384; Sabin 38555; Shirley: 1554, G.LAET-1b. Also for individual maps in this work: Burden, The Mapping of North America (1996): 267, 284-288; Cumm.
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