.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
The Library of Ernest E. Keet Sold on behalf of the Cloudsplitter Foundation
La Nuova Francia
The first map devoted to New England and New France, 1556
Details
La Nuova Francia
The first map devoted to New England and New France, 1556
[RAMUSIO, Giovanni Battista and GASTALDI, Giacomo. La Nuova Francia. Venice: 1556.]
“The first map devoted to New England and New France” (Burden). First edition, without the addition of two weeping willows made from a replacement block in 1565. It depicts the coast between New York Harbor and Labrador, including many vignettes of Native people, but not including a large stretch of coast around present-day Massachusetts. The Atlantic is shown full of fish and there appears to be an early depiction of the Gulf Stream. The information is largely based on the voyages of Giovanni Verrazzano and of Jacques Cartier, and blithely assumes that the two major waterways they explored (the Hudson and the St. Lawrence respectively) met somewhere inland. New York Harbor is denominated “Angoulesme.”
This is also the first map to use the name New France (“Nuova Francia”) for the large territories claimed by that country and bears an early appearance of “Terra de Nurumbega” for what later became New England. Nurumbega was the name given by Verrazano to a region in Maine, derived from the Abenaki term for “quiet place where two rapids meet.” Burden 25; McCorkle, New England in Early Printed Maps 556.1.
Woodcut map, 270 x 370mm (worming near centerfold skillfully repaired). Matted and framed (unexamined outside of frame).
The first map devoted to New England and New France, 1556
[RAMUSIO, Giovanni Battista and GASTALDI, Giacomo. La Nuova Francia. Venice: 1556.]
“The first map devoted to New England and New France” (Burden). First edition, without the addition of two weeping willows made from a replacement block in 1565. It depicts the coast between New York Harbor and Labrador, including many vignettes of Native people, but not including a large stretch of coast around present-day Massachusetts. The Atlantic is shown full of fish and there appears to be an early depiction of the Gulf Stream. The information is largely based on the voyages of Giovanni Verrazzano and of Jacques Cartier, and blithely assumes that the two major waterways they explored (the Hudson and the St. Lawrence respectively) met somewhere inland. New York Harbor is denominated “Angoulesme.”
This is also the first map to use the name New France (“Nuova Francia”) for the large territories claimed by that country and bears an early appearance of “Terra de Nurumbega” for what later became New England. Nurumbega was the name given by Verrazano to a region in Maine, derived from the Abenaki term for “quiet place where two rapids meet.” Burden 25; McCorkle, New England in Early Printed Maps 556.1.
Woodcut map, 270 x 370mm (worming near centerfold skillfully repaired). Matted and framed (unexamined outside of frame).
Brought to you by

Peter Klarnet
Senior Specialist, Americana