1597 / 1607 Cornelis Wytfliet Map of Virginia and the Northeast

Revealing the Virginia Colony in North America.

A superb example of Cornelis Wytfliet's 1597 map of Virginia and the northeast part of America. The map prominently features the legendary city and land of Norumbega; at the same time, it is among the earliest acquirable maps to detail the Virginia colony, making it a superb demonstration of accuracy and error in close proximity. This map is among the earliest to show John White's cartography in Virginia. It is a foundational map for any collector of Virginia or the colonization of North America.

A Closer Look

This beautifully engraved map presents the east coast of North America from Buelta de Avenas and C. de las Arenas (undetermined locations south of the Outer Banks of the Carolinas) as far north as speculative inlets beyond Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. In between, the region explored by John White's effort to create an English colony in North America appears. This part of the map, derived from the 1590 White map engraved by Theodore De Bry, spans from Cape Lookout (a possible candidate for C. de las Arenas) to the northern shore of Chesapeake Bay, capturing the Carolina Outer Bank Islands with accuracy. The map reproduces White's nearly 30 Native American villages and includes both Roanoke (Roanoac) and Croatoan, the Native American village whose name was carved into a tree by the lost Roanoke colonists.

North of the Chesapeake (Chesipooc), the map skews into the world of legend, presenting the coastline as that of the imaginary country of Norumbega, including a fabled capital city of the same name. At the northern extreme of the map, beyond fabled Norumbega, is part of Canada: Nova Francia Pars. The coastline is all but unrecognizable, its placenames overwhelmingly imaginary until the appearance of Cap de Breton and the somewhat distant Y. de Breton. A phantom island, Aredonda, appears isolated in the ocean. Centered in the ocean is a large, stately compass rose; a sailing galley plies the waters east of the Chesapeake.

Sources of the Map

As noted, the primary source for this map is the contemporaneous detail from John White's 1590 Americae Pars, Nunc Virginia dicta. The bones of the map, however, can best be ascribed to Gerard Mercator: the overall delineation of the coastline is closely related (but not identical) to Mercator's 1569 wall map of the world, Nova et aucta orbis terrae descriptio ad usum navigantium emendate accomodata. Mercator's map included Buelta de Avenas and C. de Las Arenas; the R. de Buena Madre, appearing on the Wytfliet just north of the Chesapeake, can also be found on the Mercator. North along the coast, there is much agreement between those two maps, particularly in their presentation of Norumbega and the R. Grande along which it appears. The coastal islands of Claudia Briso, Breton, and Aredonda can all be found on both maps. There is enough variation for us to suspect that Wytfliet may have had access not to this Mercator map, but to a later revision of it (either the lost 1574 world map, or the lost 1569 wall map of America).

Mercator's Norumbega geography represents a puzzle, because although he was clearly aware of Verrazzano's 1524 voyage (his world map contains a text block memorializing it), he clearly did not accept Verrazzano's geographical information, which had been in print since Gastaldi's 1548 Tierra Nueva. The absence of Cape Cod is no surprise - it does not appear on a map until 1616 - but Verrazzano's glimpses of New York Harbor and Narragansett Bay are here nowhere to be found - despite the retention of Verrazzano's Nova Francia, named after his patron nation, and the prominent appearance of the mythical Norumbega.

Norumbega: the El Dorado of New England

This mysterious land appears on a printed map for the first time on Gastaldi's 1548 map; overall, it first comes to light on Verrazzano's 1529 manuscript map of America. He used the term, Oranbega, which in Algonquin means something on the order of 'lull in the river.' The first detailed reference to Nurumbeg, or as it is more commonly spelled Norumbega, appeared in the 1542 journals of the French navigator Jean Fonteneau dit Alfonse de Saintonge, or Jean Allefonsce for short. Allefonsce was a well-respected navigator who, in conjunction with the French nobleman Jean-François de la Roque de Roberval's attempt to colonize the region, skirted the coast south of Newfoundland in 1542. He discovered and apparently sailed some distance up the Penobscot River, encountering a fur-rich American Indian city named Norumbega - somewhere near modern-day Bangor, Maine. Andre Thevet, writing in 1550, recorded encountering a French trading fort at the site. A few years later, in 1562, an English slave ship was wrecked in the Gulf of Mexico. David Ingram, one of the survivors, claimed to have trekked overland from the Gulf Coast to Nova Scotia, where he was rescued by a passing French ship. Inspired by Mexican legends of El Dorado, Cibola, and other lost cities, Ingram returned to Europe to regale his drinking companions with boasts of a fabulous city rich in pearls and built upon pillars of crystal, silver, and gold. The idea caught on in the European popular imagination, and expeditions were sent to search for the city - including that of Samuel de Champlain. The fabled place would be preserved on Mercator's maps and consequently on those of Ortelius, Plancius, De Jode, and Wytfliet, and would survive to appear in Dutch maps of the following century.

Publication History and Census

This map was engraved in Louvain in 1597 for Cornelis Wytfliet's Descriptionis Ptolemaicae Augmentum, a work intended to focus on the parts of the world unknown to Ptolemy. After the 1597 first printing, six further editions followed. There are three known states. First state examples include the date '1597' in the cartouche, and, in the lower left border, the latitude number '39' is mistakenly engraved '30'. A second state appeared with the 1607 Douai printing, for which the 1597 date was removed but the latitude error was unchanged. In 1611, the number is corrected, indicating a third state. The present example conforms to the 1607 second state. It nevertheless exhibits a bold, sharp strike. The various editions are well represented in institutional collections. Examples of this quality have nonetheless become scarce on the market.

Cartographer

Cornelius van Wytfliet (1555 - 1597) was a Flemish cartographer and engraver active in the second half of the 16th century. Little unfortunately is known of Wytfliet's life or education. He seems to have been employed as secretary to the Council of Brabant, essentially the supreme court of the Duchy of Brabant. In cartographic circles Wytfliet is best known for his publication in 1597 of Descriptionis Ptolemaicae Augmentum, the first atlas dedicated exclusively to the America's. Wytfliet imaged the atlas as a supplement to classical Ptolemaic geographic, which traditionally accounted only for Europe, Africa, and Asia. The 19 maps contained within the Descriptionis Ptolemaicae Augmentum are some of the earliest specific maps detailed various parts of the Americas.   Further Details...

Source

Wytfliet, C., Histoire universelle des Indes occidentales divisée en deux livres, faicte en latin par Monsieur Wytfliet, nouvellement traduicte, (Douai: Fabri) 1607.    

Condition

Excellent, with a bold strike and generous margins.

References

OCLC 51618000. Rumsey 11622.058 (1611 date) Burden, P., The Mapping of North America, 103; Schwartz, Seymour I./ Ehrenberg, Ralph E., The Mapping of America, pl. 40, p. 80; Danforth, S., The Land of Norumbega, no. 49. Benes, P., New England Prospect, no. 1.