Bordone, Benedetto (1460-1539)

Libro Di Benedetto Bordone Nel Qual Si Ragiona De Tutte L'Isole Del Mondo?

      Aldus for Federico Toresano, 1528. ONE OF THE FIRST BOOKS TO CONTAIN DELINEATIONS OF THE NEW WORLD Folio, with 3 double-page woodcut maps, double-page woodcut town plan of Venice and 108 woodcut maps and town plans in text. Contemporary calf gilt binding with Aldus tooled insignia; gilt edges References: Lloyd Arnold Brown, The World Encompassed, exh. cat. (Baltimore, 1952), n. 83; Rodney W. Shirley, The Mapping of the World (London, 1983), n. 59; Philip D. Burden, The Mapping of North America: A List of Printed Maps 1511-1670 (Rickmansworth, 1996), 11. The isolario, or book of islands, was a popular genre that had first appeared in manuscript examples by Cristoforo Buondelmonte dating from the early fifteenth century, then in printed versions by Bartolommeo dalli Sonetti from the late 1400s. More so than its predecessors, the isolario first published in 1528 by Venice-based cartographer Benedetto Bordone was formative for Renaissance geographical conceptions. Bordone's early sixteenth-century treatment of the island-atlas theme greatly expanded upon the earlier works, augmenting the conventional focus on the eastern Mediterranean to encompass maps of other parts of Europe and the world, stretching as far as the Indian Ocean, the African coastline and the New World. Bordone's maps of islands in the West Indies, although schematic in their outlines (perhaps reflecting the author's training as a miniaturist as opposed to a cartographer), were among the first nautical charts of these regions to become widely available, and his map of "La gran citta di Temistican" (pictured above)--modern-day Mexico City--brought the former Aztec capital before the eyes of curious European viewers and recorded for posterity its form prior to the destruction wrought by Cortez. Equally important is the map of the eastern coast of North America, which includes labels for "Terra de lavoratore, " thought to represent a section of the modern-day Atlantic coast of Canada, and "p[ar]te del mondo novo"--"part of the New World"--w