Mapmaker: Matthias Quad

This map from Quad’s general atlas of the world, an expansion of his 1592 edition, is a reduced version of Cornelis de Jode’s Americae Pars Borealis, Antwerp, 1593. It does not help much to locate the future New Netherland, but it does help to understand the limits of European perspective on the new continent. Although it appeared more than 100 years after the entry of the continent into European consciousness, it shows how little was known about the area between Virginia and the St. Lawrence. The map reflects details taken from Mercators’ 1569 atlas. The Mercator projection gives a squeezed effect to the northern extremities of the continent.

The medium of copperplate allows for more refinement of detail and text than the older woodcut, although hints of the latter hover in its style. Why so much text? Why in Latin? This is a document of information presented in the language of the scholar, the informed thinker. It would not help a captain on the high seas.