L'Isole piu Famose del Mondo.

Tommaso Porcacchi

In Venetia : appr. Sim. Galignani e Gir. Porro, 1576.

Folio. 3 parts in 1. Bound in contemporary vellum, ink title, raised bands. Engraved title, 201 pp., wood-engraved printer's device on the last leaf, 47 half-page copperplate maps, including two world maps. Minor soiling and a few stains to vellum. Engraved title page trimmed and mounted, awkwardly colored with pastels, some damage to the page affecting the title (added in pencil).  Scattered foxing, soiling. A few pages have paper reinforcements to marginal tears.

Second and best edition of Porcacchi's famous Isolari book, including 17 maps not published in the first edition of 1572.  The New World is represented from pages 154-184: "Descrittione della Gran Citta e isola Temistitan [Tenochtitlan]," with a plan; "Descrittione dell'isola et terra di Santa Croce, overo Mondo Nuouo."  Porcacchi write extensively about the pre-conquest state of the Aztec culture.  Contains a reduced version of Forlani's important map of North America first published in Venice in 1565, which was the first to show America as a single geographic entity. Descriptions of the islands of "Spagnvola", "Cvba", "Iamaica" or "S. Iacopo", "S. Lorenzo", and "S. Giovanni"or "Borichen," in five maps. The East Indies are as "Dell'Isole Molucche".  Additionally, this edition is the first to provide the account of Jamaica. The two world maps at the end illustrate "Descrittione del Mappamondo," and "Discorso intorno alla Carta da navigare" Refs: Olschki, Choix, I 990. Adams P. 1905. Phillips 167. Sabin 64149. Alden/Landis 576/35. Borba de Moraes 685. Blackmer 1330. Leclerc 1192. Nordenskiold 187.