LA CALIFORNIE OU NOUVELLE CAROLINE TEATRO DE LOS TRABAJOS APOSTOLICOS DE LA COMPA. JESUS EN LA AMERICA SEPTE.
Fer, Nicholas de:
Paris: De Fer dans l'Isle du Palais à la Sphere Royale, 1720. Copper-engraved map, with original outline color. Sheet size: 19 3/4 x 28 3/8 inches. In excellent condition. One of the largest and most important depictions of California as an Island. This is one of the finest early maps of California and the Southwest. Wheat called it an "important and carefully drawn map"; and Tooley described it as a "fine rare map...a reissue of de Fer's map of 1705 but on a larger scale and with some notable additions." The map was based on information gathered by Father Eusibio Kino before 1695. Kino, Jesuit missionary and traveler, visited Baja California in 1685. He was among the Seris and Pimas in 1690, after which he transferred to northern Sonora, where he remained until his death in 1711. His missionary work in Sonora included expeditions north and west to Arizona. In 1696 he sent to Rome a compilation of his cartographical work. It was this manuscript, or another similar map now lost, on which Nicholas de Fer based his printed map. De Fer's map is probably the best synthesis of knowledge for the region on the eve of Kino's subsequent 1701 discovery that California was attached to the continental landmass. De Fer still shows California as an island, probably the last great map to do so, and the Gila flows directly into the sea rather than correctly into the Colorado River. The Gila is thick with placenames, and New Mexico is well portrayed. Below the title is a lengthy engraved text that gives the early history of California up to 1695. Over 350 towns and villages are located on the map. It is an invaluable record of the late seventeenth century missions and Indian villages in the region. LOWERY, THE LOWERY COLLECTION 205. McLAUGHLIN, CALIFORNIA AS AN ISLAND 196. TOOLEY, "California as an island," 83, in THE MAPPING OF AMERICA. WHEAT TRANSMISSISSIPPI 102.
(Item ID: WRCAM38709) $12,000.00