Descrizione

Ca. 195 x 293 mm. Ink on vellum primed with gesso, annotated in Latin. An early map of Africa and Asia south of the Equator, Indonesia largely obscured by a defect to the upper right corner. Tristan da Cunha is identified, as well as the Antarctic Circle. The map also shows the hypothetical southern continent Terra Australis Incognita, merging into New Guinea at the very right edge of the vellum sheet. The "unknown land of the south" was first posited in antiquity and appeared on maps between the 15th and 18th centuries before its existence was finally disproven by the voyages of James Cook, which instead established the existence of Australia more or less in its place. - Ink rather faint in places. Surface slightly rubbed; some wrinkling and creasing; loss to upper right corner (ca. 6 x 3 cm).