MERCATOR, Gerhard (1512-1594). Virginiae Item et Floridae Americae Provinciarum, nova Descriptio. Amsterdam: Hondius, ND. Engraved, original hand color in full. Float mounted and framed. Framed: 27 ½ x 31 ½ inches, Sheet size: 18 x 22 ¼ inches. This exquisitely executed map was one of the most celebrated of the Mercator-Hondius projects. Gerard Mercator was the greatest cartographer of the sixteenth century, and his innovations continue to be employed in maps produced today, 400 years later. Jacodus Hondius produced an edition of Mercator’s atlas in 1606, and it was the first to include this map of Virginia and Florida.
Vividly hand-colored, this map brought the New World to European viewers with outstanding clarity and immediacy, describing not just the distant terrain, but also including images of exotic flora and fauna, as well as native peoples. Most importantly, this map was one of the earliest and most accurate views of a New World area available to Europeans, and included the Chesapeake Bay and Saint Petersburg.