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Cars in Brazil

I like maps. Period. They teach us so many things -- geography, history, politics, science, etc... - but they also embody so many other essential elements of life -- art, expression, literature, fantasy and ideals. Well at lest that was the way it was until about 1800.

I have collected maps since childhood. When my kids were small, they had maps hanging from their walls. About 10 years ago I began collecting digital images (and some real ones, too) of early maps of Arizona and Brazil. Once in a while I buy things online, unually in auctions. In mid 2003 I purchased a map in Argentina, that was not identified by the owner. He had no clue about the who, what or when of the map, or even if it was an original or a copy. Also map was in bad shape, glued to a board, and framed behind broken glass. Oh well. $50 dollars later it was mine.

This is a scan of the map! Beware, it is very large (4200x3000 pixels).

It looked like an Ortelius map and was similar to maps of about 1600 in style and content. An internet search under "Orbis terrae compendiosa descriptio" yielded quite a few results, from many different cartographers (Mercator, Orletius, Goos, etc...) but no match. I added "Urient" (which I thought to be the name of the maker) to the seach and still no luck. A month later I went through this again and spotted the name "Vrient". Of course I knew the old Romans and the classics couldn't figure the difference between a U and a V> Anyway, I had a name and an image.
This is basic information of this map (mostly from www.maphistory.com and www.swaen.com): Size is 395x573 mm. A very rare large and decorative double hemisphere world map, with the name of Joan Baptistum Vrients. A close copy of Plancius' 1594 world map. The map is engraved by Arnoldus and Henricus Florentinus van Langren to be used for the first edition of Linschoten's Itinerario published by Cornelis Claesz. This much rarer edition differences from the Plancius edition in the northern seas. The pictorial scenes forming the outer border have been regrouped with even greater stylistic effect. This map appears very similar to the earlier prototype - the first world map to incorporate detailed decorative vignettes to represent the four continents - but Shirley notes "the pictorial scenes forming the outer border have been regrouped with even greater stylistic effect ... The overall engraving is even finer than that of the earlier map ...". At the centre, above and below the spheres are celestial charts of each hemisphere, while along each upper and lower border are scenes with animals, habitations, landscapes and elegant female figures depicting each continent. Below the double hemispheres Mexicana and Peruvana have been combined to form a single America, and the fictional Magellanica omitted in favor of a full-panel Africa. The overall engraving is much finer that that of the map engraved by Jan van Doetecum. Linschoten had been in Portuguese service in the East Indies for nearly ten years. This map is considered rare, and an uncolored version of it was recently sold for over $20,000.
Is the map 400 years old or not? Is it valuable? Pros: It looks old, it is the right size, it has some very old folds in it and I could find no shop selling copies. Cons: too cheap, its glued to a board, and most of all it has small, white marks (easily visible in the scan) where the broken glass rubbed and scratched the surface of the map. It it were really old, wouldn't the paper parchment be brownish under the paper surface? I don't know. Any way, if real, and considering the bad state of the piece and the darn glue, it may be worth something, probably more than I paid for it. If not real, I had fun and have a great scan of a typical 1600s map, with lots of facinating details.

Page updated: June 2004