Jodocus Hondius (1563-1612) after a work by Gerard Mercator (1512-1594); Virginiae Item et Floridae Americae Provinciarum nova Descriptio, 1606, black and white line engraving with period color, 14-1/2 x 19-3/4 in. (plate), 17-7/8 x 22 in. (overall); unframed
Notes: This copy was published in William C. Wooldridge, Mapping Virginia, figure 14, pp. 22-23; a detail appears on p. xii, in the preface of the volume.
This copy of the map is illustrated on the cover of Mapping Virginia: From the Age of Exploration to the Civil War, by William C. Wooldridge. This map will be accompanied by a copy of the book. This map was taken from the atlas, Atlas Sive Cosmographicae Meditationes. Gerard Mercator, the inventor of Mercator’s projection died in 1594 without publishing the entirety of his atlas. Mercator’s son and others attempted to complete the atlas, but it was Jodocus Hondius who would truly complete the work after he purchased Mercator’s plates in 1604. Hondius published Mercator’s atlas, amplified by new maps by Hondius and others, with text by Petrus Montanus. The atlas and map is referred to as 'Mercator-Hondius' for this reason. This was the first edition of Mercator’s atlas to include maps of Virginia and Florida.
Literature: Burden, Philip, The Mapping of North America, no. 151; Cumming, W.P. "Geographical Misconceptions of the Southeast in the Cartography of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries." in Journal of Southern History, IV, pp., 476-92; Cumming, William P., The Southeast in Early Maps, map 26; Keuning, J. "The History of an Atlas, Mercator-Hondius." Imago Mundi, IV (1948), 37-62.
Provenance: Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, Proceeds to Benefit the Acquisitions Fund

remnants of hinges verso in upper margin, discoloration, mat burn on the edges, early conservation in bottom margin in two places, foxing, light toning, minor losses to edges, ink and other minor stains in margins, pencilled writing in margin verso