Detailed Photographic Facsimile of One of the Great Portuguese Manuscript Maps of the World.

Impressive early photographic facsimile of the famous portolan world map by Portuguese mapmaker Lopo Homem.

The map shows an interesting configuration of the Canadian Arctic coastline, hinting at John Cabot's discovery of Hudson Bay at the beginning of the 16th century.

The map also includes curious renderings of Japan, Korea, and the Philippines.

The map now housed in Florence.

The Edward Luther Stevenson Collection

Edward Luther Stevenson was among the most important scholars of early cartography active at the end of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th. He was responsible for numerous cartobibliographic books, including the first translation of Ptolemy to English, as well as a series of impressive facsimile maps produced while he was at the Hispanic Society of New York. Dr. Stevenson viewed facsimiles as integral to the study of early cartography, and he committed himself to building an unparalleled collection of photographs of early maps and globes. Much of his collection was donated to Yale University after his death (click on the title link above for about that), but the present item comes from a large collection of photos, manuscripts, and related material that were part of Stevenson's library, but were not donated to Yale. It is truly an impressive collection and many of the items, though reproductions, have serious antiquarian merit. As Alexander O. Vietor said about Stevenson collection that went to Yale "this is the stuff of which great libraries are made."