Baroque Era Cartography: Alternate Names for the Americas
Antonio Rios-Bustamante

Early maps of the continents of North and South America used a variety of nomenclature including Mondus Novus, Terra Nova, Terra Firme, Tierra de Florida, Tierra de Cuba, for the continents before the name America was universally accepted. Some of these names appeared on one or two maps, others had a broader diffusion for a period of time. In 1997, while a participant in the Cartography and History Summer Institute at the Smith Center, I edited a work called “Cartography of the Mexico-United States Frontier. Newberry Library Slide Set Number 21.” My research for this publication drew my attention to several maps which used as alternative or coequal titles for the continents of North and South America, the titles “America Mexicana” and “America Peruana.” Through further research I have discovered that other maps also used these titles, and that while several scholars have described individual maps which used this nomenclature, they have not described the larger series of sixteenth and seventeenth century maps which use these names or identified the larger significance of the usage.

The series of published maps using the names “America Mexicana” and “America Peruana” begins with the Petrus Plancius map “Orbis terrarum typus de integro multis in locis emendatus auctore Petro Plancio of 1590.” In 1596 Theodore Bry also used this nomenclature in his map “America sive Novus Orbis.” There is also a 1576 map, “America Peruana,” by Gerrard De Jode depicting South America with this nomenclature for the southern continent. In all, well over forty published maps dating from 1590 to about 1690 used these names. Upon reflection it is logical that during this period these names were being used as the main titles for the continents, as during that period, Mexico and Peru were the best known geographical entitles on the northern and the southern continents of the Americas.

To verify this hypothesis, I examined geographical reference works of the period to see if they provided evidence supporting this viewpoint. A major period reference source, The Great Historical, Geographical and Poetical Dictionary by Louis Moreri, confirms my supposition. Originally published in France in 1681, it was translated, expanded and published in English in 1694. Volume one of the dictionary specifically states in the entry under “America”:

America or the West Indies, one of the four parts of the habitable America or the West Indies, first discovered by Christopher Columbus, a Genoese in 1492. And from Americo Vaspucci a Florentine first called America. …This vast continent is devided into the Northern and the Southern America. The Northern, which is also called America Mexicana from Mexico, is bounded by the Pacific Sea, and L’Estreche d’Anian to the west and south, to the east by the Bay Mexico, and the North Sea, and to the north by the whole Arctic frozen regions yet unknown; containing Canada or New France, Estotiland, Florida, New England, New Denmark, New Spain, or the Kingdom of Mexico, comprehending Yucatan. Nicaragua, Nueva-Galicia, Michoacan, Guatimala, and Honduras, New Granada, Virginia, the Isle of California,, Cuba, Hispaniola, and innumerable others called the Antilles. The Southern America, which is also called Peruvian America has to the North the North Sea, to the east the Aethiopic Ocean, to the south the Magellanic Sea, and the Streights of Magellan and Maire, and to the west the Pacific Sea. The Regions of Southern America are Brazil, Chili, Guiana, Terra Magellanica, New Andaluscia, New Granada, Paraguay, Parana, Parria, Popajan, the Kingdom of Peru, the Terra Firma,Tierra Del Fuego, Tucuman, Venezuela. The Spaniards have within their Dominions, which are the largest part of America, 5 Arch-Bishopics, and have 34 Bishopics… .

Undoubtedly there are more maps or map editions of the same period which will be found which used this nomenclature. This then constituted an alternative geographical nomenclature for many maps of the early Baroque period.

Bibliography

Bolea, Leon. Viento Del Noroeste. Mexico: Editorial Iztaccihuatl, 1972.

Leon Portilla, Miguel. Cartografia y Cronicas De La Antigua California. Mexico: UNAM, 1989.

Moreland, Carl and David Bannister. Antique Maps. London: Phaidon Press, 1993.

Moreri, Louis. Le grand dictionaire historique, Lyon, et se vend à Paris, chez Jacques Villery. 1681.

Moreri, Louis. Great Historical, Geographical and Poetical Dictionary. Sixth Edition. London, 1694. Corrected and enlarged by Monsieur Le Clerc in two volumes in folio print. London: Routledge/Thoemmes Press, 1999.

Reyes Vayssade, Martin, ed., Cartografia Historica Del Encuentro De Dos Mundos. Mexico: INEGI, 1992.

Rios-Bustamante, Antonio. Cartography of the Mexico-United States Frontier. Chicago: Hermon Dunlap Smith Center for the History of Cartography, Newberry Library, 1997.

Shirley, Rodney. The Mapping of the World: Early Printed World Maps 1472-1700. London: New Holland, 1993.

Wolff, Hans. America: Early Maps of the New World. Munich: Prestel, 1992.

Editor’s Note
Professor Rios-Bustamante’s list of published maps dating from 1590 to about 1690 that use “America Mexicana” for North America and “America Peruana” for South America will be made available on-line at http://www.newberry.org/smith/mapline.html beginning in August 2001.