Venezuela cum parte Australi

     This 1638 landmark map is by Johannes Janssonius.  In the West it starts near present day Riohacha, Columbia and to the East it flows to the Orinoco River and Delta. The map shows a splendid array of islands starting with Aruba in the West,  as far as Tobago to the East and as far North as  Dominica Island just past Matalino know as present day Martinique.  

      Janssonius was a Dutch cartographer who was born, worked and passed in Amsterdam (1558-1664).

He was born the son of Jan Janszoon who was also a famous publisher.  Jonssonius married Elisabeth de Hondt who was the daughter of Jodocus Hondius, another incredibly famous cartographer.  In the 1630's Johannes formed a partnership with his brother in law,  Henricus Hondius.  Together they published a number of atlases including "Atlas Novus" 1638 which used the plate from this 1630 map.

      This first edition plate was used afterwards  by many other famous mapmakers such as Bleau, Montanus, Schenk,  and Van Der Aa.  That is what makes this particular edition so rare.

       The  first explorer from Europe to step foot on Venezuela (August 1, 1498)  was Christopher Columbus on his third Voyage.   

      This exceptional circa 1727 map is by Pieter van der AA.  The area includes  what is modern day South East Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Western Panama and the Southern tip of Belize.  El Salvador and Belize are not noted of the map because they didn't become countries until 1821 and 1981 respectively.  The map shows Lakes Nicaragua and Managua with  the San Juan river that empties in the Caribbean Sea.  Lake Managua is untitled. The beautiful title cartouche and bold picture frame borders were certainly emblematic of van der AA.  

      Pieter van der AA (1659-1733) was a Dutch publisher of maps, atlases and scenes with associated text of histories dating back to the 13th century.  The majority of the plates for his maps were 

made by others with Pieter's artistry and text added which might explain the vast variety of sizes. He became Leiden's most famous publisher when he was appointed head printer for the City as well as the University.  This particular map has never been folded.  I believe this map is from van der AA's 1727 folio edition of  "NAAUKEURIGE VERSAMELING DER GEDENK-WAARDIGSTE ZEE EN LAND-REYSEN NA OOST EN WEST-INDIEN " volume for voyages and text from 1521- 1524.  

      In this exceptional edition there is a block of text at the bottom. One of the names is Gil Gonzalez Davila which also appears in the title cartouche. After waiting three years for allowance from the king of Spain to explore  Central America,  he left Spain in 1518 and reached Panama in 1519.  Taking a few years to put this voyage together might have been the easy part.  I wonder when Gil stepped foot on Panama whether he knew what had happened to his predecessor, Vasco de Balboa.   Mr. Balboa and the then said governor of Panama a Mr.  Pedro Arias Davila or Pedrarias did not see eye to eye.  I would say that is being diplomatic.  In fact after some time away from each other Pedrarias summoned Mr. Balboa with niceties, after all Vasco was slated to marry Pedrarias's daughter. Balboa took the bait and was arrested with his cohorts and found guilty at a makeshift trial in Panama despite Balboa and his men's plea to have a trial back in Spain.  Treason.  They were beheaded.  There are some pitfalls to arranged marriages.  Back to Gil Davila, after some three years of being thwarted by the governor as well he was able to move on with his explorations and was the first European to discover Lakes Nicaragua and Managua amongst other things. The other name in the text block is Ferdinand Cortez or Hernan Cortez (1485-1547) .  He ,of coarse, was part  of a first generation of Conquistadors to colonize  South and Central America.  He was born in Medellin Spain and early on dreamed of finding riches in the new world.  He went to Hispaniola and Cuba where he gained the right to purvey labor from the then Governor of Cuba.  In 1519 he was elected captain to go to the Mainland where he turned indigenous people against each other and overthrew the Aztec Empire with the help of the indifferent locals to Aztec natives and brought European diseases to the area which would have also decimated any local tribes.  Currently,  and in addition to,  some 97% of others in this region including Cortez is not a name indigenous to South America. 

Information sources include: Britannica, Wikipedia  

    This incredible map of Mexico, the Yucatan and most of Central America is by Giambattista Albrizzi.  His maps are becoming more and more scarce for his style of cartography and beautiful vignettes as exhibited in this map.  On the Gulf of Mexico side it starts at Nuovo Leon which originally was established under King Philip II of Spain in 1556, certainly an ardent purveyor of discovery of his time.  It was disestablished in 1821 and became part of the Mexican Empire.  The map on the Eastern coast south ends on the Honduras - Panama border. On the neatline it shows part of Florida and Cuba as well as all the islands in the respective field. On the Pacific side it starts North at Cinaloa and finishes South in Costa Rica. A very inclusive 1740 map. 

     Giambattista Albrizzi (1698-1777)  was second in a generational Italian publishing company.  His father,  Girolamo Albrizzi  founded what was to become a profound family publishing establishment.  The father and son team surrounded themselves with artists and engravers such as Giovanni Piazzeta and Vincenzo Coronelli to produce some of the the most beautiful maps of their time.   

     This very nice map is by Jean Robert Janvier (1746-1776).  The map is dated 1762 which would have made Janvier age 16 at the date of publication.  It is a first edition map that was later used by Jean Lattre in his 1775 issue of the Atlas Moderne.  The map appears to be a precursor to Janvier's "L'Amerique Septentrionale" also dated 1762 which displays exponentially more northern points of North America as well as part of what is now the Russian Peninsula of Chukotka.  Many of the geographical parts and names are interchangeable with the  two maps.  There are some rather aggressive speculations in the northwest region of this map,  perhaps even more so than later maps with more updated information such as Santini's "Carte des Nouvelles Decouvertes au Nord" of 1776 or Engel's 1765 map of North America.  These geographical risks were taken throughout the age of discovery and create some of the intrigue for maps such as this one.  For instance, the map shows a Lac (lake) des Bois south west of Hudson's Bay.  There is currently a Lac des Bois in Canada that is  northwest of Hudson's Bay.   Archipel St. Lazare on the northwester most part of the map is currently associated with the Marianes and just north of Lazare Archipel lies a notation "Conassetville Indienne",

a term I could only find referenced in Jean de la Harpe's "Histoire Generale".  The Hawaiian Islands were unfounded. Truth be told, the quest for the North West Passage burned for some 400 years and the eighteen and nineteenth centuries were no different.  The fabled voyages, mythical geographies and storied accounts are in this beautiful map by Janvier.   One could think that some of the misappropriations could have to do with deglaciation,  to be fair.

This nicely detailed 1780 map of Northern Brazil is by Rigobert Bonne.  The coastline from north starts at Oiopoque , a municipality of Amapa' , Brazil that forms the international border with French Guiana. The coast travels South and ends near Ilheus. Lake Parime lies in the northwest section of this map.  The lake is the setting for the ghost like accounts of the lost City of El Dorado ladened with gold for any explorer to take who could find it.  Well, the Lake is on the map along with a major section of the Amazon River. The Largest river on the continent.  Brazil is the largest country in South and Central America and has nine countries that border it.  

    This detailed First State 1812  map is by Jean Baptiste Tardieu ( 1746-1816) from the Atlas Supplementaire du Precis de la Geographie.   What predicates this map as First State, among topographical nuances , is the word "LOUISIANE" which is located just south of "SEPTENTRIONALE,"   Latter publications were void of some of these details.  Louisiane was named in honor of King Louis XIV  by French explorer Rene  Robert Cavalier de La Salle,  who put claim to the territory in 1682 after sailing from the Great Lakes via The St. Lawrence and Atlantic to the Mississippi River Delta.  As difficult a journey that must have been,  I would call that a very equitable annex....sight unseen. This ownership was somewhat lengthy but would not last.   Near the end of the Seven Years War, France would relinquish the territory to Spain through the Treaty of Fountainbleau, 1762.  The territory was given back to the French  via treaties  San lldefoso and  Aranjuez,  1800 and 1801 respectively.  Out of need for money for future conquests,  Napoleon and France sold the territory to Jefferson and the United States in 1803 for some 15 million dollars, with current debts absolved, thus the Louisiana Purchase.   There were still a couple of continental swaths outstanding to join the union.  The Mexican territory west of the Rockies and the British colonies garnered by Spain in the 1783  Second Treaty of Paris,  in East and West Florida.  With the end of the Mexican- American war in 1848 came resolve for West of the Rockies,  including the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo which seceded the land to the U.S.   It also included a 15 million dollar payment to Mexico.  History does repeat itself, I thought most of that land was already paid for in that Louisiana Purchase thing?   After many years of negotiations with Spain, the Florida Purchase Treaty of 1819 was drafted which officially put Florida in the hands of the United States. 

      The word Septentrionale comes from the  Latin  word Septentriones  meaning  "of the North".  The boundaries in color represent the entities that owned, colonized or governed them. The United States is in pink,  Britian in orange, Spain in Blue and the green was part of Mexico.