Histoire Universelle des Indes occidentales et orientales, et de la conversion des Indiens. Divisiee en trois parties by WYTFLIET, Cornelis van and Giovanni Antonio MAGINI - 1611

Douai: chez François Fabri, 1611. 3 parts in one volume, folio. (11 7/8 x 7 1/2 inches). 3 letterpress titles within engraved surrounds, woodcut printer's device on the final page of the first and third parts. 23 engraved maps on 20 sheets (19 double-page, 4 small maps printed on a single double-page sheet). (First two titles and some text leaves misbound). Early 18th-century calf, spine gilt in seven compartments with raised bands, lettered in the second, the others with repeat pattern in gilt (joints weak, corners bumped) Provenance: J. Besnier (or 'Benier', 'Huissier ord. du Cabinet du Roi', numerous inscriptions, many crossed through, some dated 1650); de La Porte (signatures, some with date 1654); Madame la Comtesse des Courtils (19th-century armorial bookplate) A fine copy of Wytfliet's description of the Americas (the third edition in French), here with the addition of Magini's valuable description of the West and East Indies and Japan. The first edition of Wyfliet's work is "the first atlas of America" (Burden), and was first published in Latin as Descriptionis Ptolemaicae augmentum in 1597. As the title suggests, it was marketed as a supplement to Ptolemy's Geographia , with text based on the writings of Ramusio, Hakluyt, de Bry, Acosta and others. The work was evidently popular as two further Latin editions appeared in 1598 and 1603. The work was then translated into French and combined with the work of Magini and others and first published under the present title in 1605. Further editions of this compilation appeared in 1607 and 1611 (the present edition). The nineteen double-page engraved maps of the American continent appeared in all of the Latin and French editions (but with some changes of state). The first map (a double-hemisphere world map) is based on Mercator's influential map of 1587. There then follows ten maps of South America (the north coast of South America with the Caribbean islands, Hispaniola, Cuba and Jamaica, Chile, Peru, two maps of Brazil, two maps of central America, Colombia, Venezuela, and Antarctica/Tierra del Fuego (notable as one of the earliest maps of Antarctica) and eight important maps of North America. In addition to the large double-page maps there are also four small maps on one double-page sheet in Magini's supplement showing the East Indies, Japan, China and the Philippines. Philip Burden gives full details of the American maps in his The Mapping of North America .. 1. Conibas Regio. Burden 100 ("the first printed map of present day central Canada"). 3rd state of 3, with Higuater reading. 2. Estotilandia et Laboratoris Terra. Burden 101, 1st and only state. 3. Nova Francia et Canada. Burden 102 (the first map "to use Canada in its title, and the first to concentrate on the river and Gulf of St. Lawrence"). 2nd state of 2, with date 1597 removed. 4. Norumbega et Virginia. Burden 103 ("only the second [map] to use Virginia in the title). 2nd state of 3, with date removed but latitude mark reading 30 instead of 39 at left side. 5. Florida et Apalche. Burden 104. 1st and only state. 6. Hispania Nova. Burden 105 ("takes in all of present day southern Texas"). 1st and only state. 7. Granata Nova et California. Burden 106 ("the first printed map devoted to California and the south-west of the present day United States"). 1st and only state. 8. Limes Occidentis Quiuira et Anian. Burden 107. 2nd state of 2, with date removed. The map titled Floride et Apalche is of particular note. Largely derived from a map by Ortelius, the source for both maps was the Spanish geographer Geronimo Chaves. "Privy to all of the official reports of the Spanish explorers, Chaves's map recorded the discoveries of Cabeza de Vaca, de Soto, and Moscoso ... The Chaves map published by Ortelius was, therefore, one of the earliest printed maps of the territory based on actual observations, and its reproduction in Wytfliet's popular work helped to correct the previous imaginary concepts of the area" (Martin & Martin). Nordenskiold 2: 310; Phillips Atlases 4459; Sabin 105701; Martin & Martin, Maps of Texas and the Southwest , p. 75, plate 6.