This article will be of interest to all those who use Rodney Shirley's book, The Mapping of the World[1] for reference. He uses the word 'new' in the title of this article guardedly, meaning only that these six maps, among a number of others that have come to light, are not listed in the book (1984) nor in the addenda (1987). The author comments on the six maps in chronological order.

THE FIRST SUCH MAP initially thought to be a completely unrecorded Italian world map of the 1570s as I could not recognise the initials concluding the imprint (misread as D D); nor could I place the date which seemed to read 'M D LXX4' - an unusual combination of Roman and Arabic numerals. However, the map (top right) was identified as the hitherto unknown second state of Donato Bertelli's world map of 1568 (entry 118 in The Mapping of the World) of which only two copies were known to R.V. Tooley. In 1992, only a month after I had visited Grenoble and noted this map in a nine-volume atlas factice in the Bibliothèque Municipale, an identical example in the form of a xerox arrived for identification from the National Library of Scotland: an odd coincidence. It is to Margaret Wilkes, the Map Librarian at the National Library of Scotland, that I owe close scrutiny of the date on their copy, concluding that the '4' is not a numeral but the remains of an earlier date 'MDLXVIII.'

Also observed in the same atlas factice in Grenoble was the map of the world by Gioseppe Rosaccio (bottom right). There is a prominent southern continent with mountains and woodlands, and unusual pivotal decorations at the north and south polar points. Rosaccio was an Italian publisher and map maker active in the last decade or so of the sixteenth century. His output is strangely uneven. Some of the maps accompanying his publications are simplistic in the extreme; for instance, his map of the British Isles of 1595 is one of the crudest that I can recall.[2] However, his oval wall map of the world of 1597 (entry 205, plate 163 in The Mapping of the World) is a detailed and impressive work as is his large map of Italy dating from 1608.[3] The 'new' map is smaller and similar in format to his better known double-hemispherical world map that appeared in the modern section of his edition of Ptolemy's Geographia in 1598. However, I believe that the Grenoble map is a rare example of an earlier essay. The title is in Italian, the configuration of the world is less mature - harking back to the maps of the 1570s - and the signature is in the form 'Gioseppe Rosatio' found on his small circular world map of 1590 (entry 178 in The Mapping of the World). So I attribute the Grenoble map to about this date although it could be earlier.

Probably the finest 'new' world map to have surfaced over the last decade is the unusual triptych-style map by Frans Verhaer (see p. 4) which was auctioned by Sotheby's in 1989.[4] Verhaer is known for another not dissimilar world map (entry 287; plate 222[A] in The Mapping of the World) which is attributed to c.1614. The Sotheby's Verhaer was also given the date 'c.1614' but the catalogue compiler must have missed a small inscription off the southern tip of South America referring to Le Maire and his passage of 1617. The map is therefore of a later date. A third set of gores by Verhaer is also known in the Mercator Museum of Sint-Niklaas, Belgium, which would make up into a globe of 22 cm. (9 3/4 in.) in diameter; this also has the date 1617.

Donato Bertelli's world map, of 1568, the title of which reads when translated, "Universal description of all the known world". A xerox sent to the author for identification by the National Library of Scotland was identified as the hitherto unknown second state dated 1570. (By courtesy of the National Library of Scotland)

This map of the world, seen by the author in an atlas factice, is by Gioseppe Rosaccio, an Italian publisher and map maker active towards the end of the sixteenth century. Although it reflects an earlier configuration of the world it is believed to date to around 1590. (By courtesy of the Bibliothèque Municipale, Grenoble, France)