In 1561 Girolamo Ruscelli (ca. 1504-1566) adapted the maps of Gastaldi's 1548 Ptolemy for a new edition, twice the size of the Gastaldi plates. He continued the fine engraving quality of Gastaldi. According to Thomassy (Les Papes geographes in Nouv. Ann. de Voygaes, 33, 1853, p.155) these particular maps served for the models for the wall-paintings done in the Vatican during the reign of Pope Pius IV. The present example is from an issue by Rosaccio, unchanged save for wider margins and an additional typeset heading above the engraved title.
This sea chart of the world depicts the entirety of the continental northern landmasses as an unbroken ring around the globe. North America and Asia form a single mammoth continent, which in turn connects to northern Europe via Greenland. The Asia-America connection was a standard concept, and one of which Gastaldi (and in turn Ruscelli) was a particularly strong endorser. This maps linking of North America and Europe is highly unusual, however, but was a natural consequence of two errors : on the east, Gastaldi depicts Greenland as an elongated east-west outgrowth of Scandinavia, a peculiar pattern used by Waldseemller earlier in the century on the world map from his atlas of 1513; on the west, he adopts the Verrazanian model for North America which had been sanctioned by Mnster in 1540. In combination, these two flawed elements stretched out over the North Atlantic and, quite logically, joined.
The implications of Verrazanos geography were exciting. An enterprising merchant might simply construct a vessel on the far (western) shore of the isthmus (which Verrazano believed to be as narrow as a mile in width) to conduct an easy two-stage rendevous with China, thus finally succeeding in establishing the viable trading route to the East which Columbus and so many others had sought. At the far end of this journey, crossing the China Sea, Gastaldi shows Tangut, the place in China where the messengers of the Kublai Khan had met Marco Polo. At the bottom of the isthmus, the junction between perceived Asia and perceived America, Gastaldi has marked montagna verde, an early reference to the Appalachian (Blue Ridge?) Mountains.
On the Atlantic coast by this green mountain is a large, unnamed cape pointing upwards. This cape, which appears to have made its printed debut on the Ramusio map of 1534 and appeared in manuscript as early as the Ribero chart of 1529, is found on such later works as the de Jode North America. It is often presumed to be Cape Cod, and indeed both the Ribero and Ramusio prototypes reflect the reconnaissance along the New England coast of Estavao Gomes, who is believed to have scouted that cape. But on both those maps, the closest original sources we have, the cape appears on the more southern landfalls of Ayllon rather than those of Gomes New England. De Jode later mis-matches it to C. de las Arenas, which, though indeed a Gomes place-name, more likely represented Cape May.
While the influence of Marco Polo is evident in the parts of Asia which join North America, the old Polean bonds have finally been severed in Southeast Asia and the Australasian islands. A modern, if still inaccurate, Sumatra and Java have replaced Polo's Java Minor and Java Major, and the true Singapore and Malacca Straits now appear, unnamed on the present map because of space constraints but with an early reference to Singapore (Cinca Pura) found on the regional map from the same atlas. On the north of the Malay Peninsula, Burma appears by its modern name (berma). Above berma is an extremely early appearance in print of the term China (LA CHINA), with the old Cathay (CATAYO R) retained but relegated to the approximate region of Tibet.
In Europe, one curious feature is worth noting. The northwest tip of Spain is pushed out in a stylized fashion, clearly marking it as the most westerly point in Europe (which it is not). This is c. finis terre, the cape of the end of the earth, a little peninsula which had been considered the westerly end of the world by the Romans. That Gastaldi chose it as his only named physical feature in Western Europe, and that he distorted the Iberian coastline to stress its meaning, suggest that, in the midst of his quest for the latest cosmological truths, he allowed himself a moment of sentimentality about a past time that was a different world.
The present example of the Ruscelli map is in excellent condition, with a strong, sharp impression, and is uncolored as issued.