The First Printed Map of Florida In the Very Rare English Edition

ORTELIUS, A./ CHIAVES, H. [Antwerp/ London, 1606]

Southeast/ Florida/ Columbia/ Bolivia  ORTELIUS, A./ CHIAVES, H. [Antwerp/ London, 1584/ 1606] La Florida. Auctore Hieron. Chiasues.  Peruviae Auriferae Regionis Typus… Guastecan Reg. 14 x 18 inches.  Fine original color; light staining along centerfold & a bit in the margins, else excellent condition.                                                                                                     

A cornerstone map, the earliest acquirable to focus on Florida and the Southeast, in the rare English edition and with fine original color.  Because only a single edition with English text was published, maps from this edition are rarer than Ortelius maps in any other language.  Also, while this edition was printed in the Netherlands, it was distributed only in England, further accounting for its rarity. 

The map “La Florida,” one of three on this sheet, was the first printed map to focus on what is now the southeast United States, all of which was called Florida until the latter part of the 18^th century.  It was "one of the half-dozen most important mother-maps of southeastern North America.  This map probably had more influence than any other map in establishing the subsequent conception of Florida as including that part of the present United States from the peninsula of Florida northward to or beyond the Mississippi" (Cumming, p. 12).  The map’s surprising accuracy for its period was the result of Ortelius’s remarkable access to Spanish sources. This access would not be afforded to subsequent cartographers, as evidenced by the fact that the mapping of Florida would actually decline in accuracy over time.  See the Lemoyne, Wytfliet, and even De Laet maps.  Incredibly, the general outline of the Florida peninsula is better on the Ortelius map than on many maps published well into the 18^th century. Equally remarkable, if not more so, the other two maps that comprise this engraving display Spain's sources of gold in Columbia and of silver in Bolivia. 

The English verso text describes Florida and the other regions depicted on this engraving in considerable detail.  Of particular interest in the description of Florida, and revealing Ortelius’s assiduous pursuit of information, he quotes a letter from his nephew James (Jacob) Cole, reporting from the “the mouth of an eie-witness” on certain cultural mores of Florida’s native inhabitants.

Van den Broecke Ort15: 1606E9; Burden 57; Cumming 5.

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