Four very different items have been purchased for the Rare Book andEarly Map Collection of Special Collections & Archives in 1989-1990.The first is a small map of the Northeast compiled by Giacomo Gastaldi(ca. 1500-ca. 1565), appearing in the 1554-1565 edition of Delle Navigazionie Viaggi of Giovanni Battista Ramusio (1485-1557). This is thesecond earliest map to focus on the Northeast (the first, also compiled byGastaldi, the Tierra nueva of 1548, is also held by Special Collections &Archives). This second view of the Northeast is less important for itscartographic information (which is still tenuous, though incorporatingthe St. Lawrence River and some eastern Canadian waterways) than forits richly depicted view of life in America. America is shown as a lush,fertile land, full of wildlife. Gastaldi also presents several vignettes ofIndian daily life as he perceived them, with hunting predominating. Thesea is still populated with monsters; figures in a boat drawing fish in a netare taken directly from a Raphael tapestry. One man sleeps on the shoreunder his boat. Many place names abound, taken from Verrazano's voyageof 1524. Ramusio's volume, in which this map appeared, is notablefor having had the first collection of travel accounts referring to the NewWorld, including both Verrazano's and Carrier's (Charles H. and MaryElizabeth Brower Fund).
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