BORDONE, Benedetto

Isolario di Benedetto Bordone Nel qual si ragiona di tutte l'Isole del mondo

      Small folio. (10), 74 ff. including woodcut title-page, 2 full-page and 4 double-page maps and many maps in the text. Bound in early yap-edged vellum. Bottom border of both dbl-page maps cropped as often, with some loss to lowermost island on second; some colored residue in margin of four leaves, otherwise a bright copy.Third edition of the Isolario, containing the "gionta del Monte del Oro novamente ritrovato," mentioned on the title-page, the earliest description of Pizzaro's conquest of Peru in book form. (There exists a newsletter describing the conquest separately published in Venice before February, 1534.)The isolario, or !book of islands', was a cartographic form introduced and developed in Italy during the 15th and 16th centuries. Like the portolano, or pilot-book, to which it was related, it had its origin in the Mediterranean, as an illustrated guide for travellers in the Aegean Archipelago and the Levant. Bordone's Isolario was the second isolario to be printed and the first to give prominence to the transatlantic discoveries. Skelton quotes Almagia as saying that it is, in fact, "the earliest complete work of its kind to have been produced by the printing-press in Italy or anywhere else."The Isolario is divided into three books, devoted respectively to the !islands and peninsulas' of the western ocean, to the Mediterranean, and to islands of the Indian Ocean and the Far East. While this order corresponds very roughly to that of Ptolemy, it gives conspicuous priority to the discoveries across the Atlantic. In addition to a page of diagrams illustrating the construction of a circular world map and windroses of 'ancient' and 'modern type', there are three general maps: Europe, the Aegean, and an oval world map. Scattered through the text, in the appropriate places, are 107 small maps, plans or views including a nearly three-quarter page plan of Mexico City before the conquest of Cortez-which qualifies because it is an island.According to Cortazzi, in his Isles of Gold Antique Maps of Japan: "In 1528 the Italian cartographer Benedetto Bordone (1460-1531) produced an atlas of islands printed in Italy by Nicolo d'Aristotle. In it he included a small map of an island which he called "Ciampagu", presumably another version of Cipangu. This would seem to be the earliest European printed individual map of Japan." (p. 15)Bordone was a Paduan illuminator and wood-engraver who was apparently established at Venice by 1494. The first edition of his isolario appeared at Venice in 1528 and the last ca. 1565. * Adams 2483 (same collation as 1534 ed); Theatrum Orbis Terrarum facsimile edition edited by R.A. Skelton; see Harrisse, Bibliotheca americana vetustissima, no. 187; Sabin 6417; for the 1547 edition, see Mortimer, Italian Sixteenth Century Books, no. 82.