Porcacchi, Thomas (C.1530-1585).

L'Isole Piu Famose Del Mondo

      Simone Galignani and Girolomo Porro, 1576. Three parts in one volume. Small folio (11 3/4 x 8 inches). Engraved title-page (dampstain at top edge), 47 fine engraved maps in the text by Girolamo Porro of Padua, including two world maps, woodcut printer's device on the last leaf, woodcut head-and tailpieces (small dampstain in the upper margin affecting the text of the first few leaves). Contemporary limp vellum (lacking two pairs of ties, lightly soiled, a few pale stains). Second and best edition including 17 maps not published in the first edition of 1572. A charming and popular 16th-century atals that depicts the world as a series of islands. The New World is represented from page 154: "Descrittione della Gran Citta e isola Temistitan, " with a plan; "Descrittione dell'isola et terra di Santa Croce, overo Mondo Nuouo, " with a reduced version of Forlani's very important map of North America first published in Venice in 1565, which was the first to shows America as a single geographic entity, and is the second map to show the Strait of Anian in any detail; there are descriptions of the islands of "Spagnvola", "Cvba", "Iamaica" or "S. Iacopo", "S. Lorenzo", and "S. Giovanni"or "Borichen, " with five maps. The two world maps at the end illustrate "Descrittione del Mappamondo, " and "Discorso intorno alla Carta da navigare". Adams P-1905; Alden-Landis 576/35; Phillips, Atlases 167; Sabin 64149. Purchased for $6, 250 at Sotheby's 11th December 2008, lot 29. Catalogue description prepared for an on behalf of Arader Galleries by Kate Hunter.