L'Isole piu famose del mondo.

Venice: G.Anglieri for Simone Galignani & G.Porro, 1576. Folio (305 x 210mm), Early mottled calf gilt, with engraved architectural title and 47 half-page engraved maps by Girolamo Porro, engraved initials, head- and tail-pieces, with printer’s device at end.
A wonderful copy in good state of preservation.

Second Enlarged Edition of Porcacchi’s beautifully illustrated ‘island book’. The first edition of 1572 included only 30 maps. In this edition , the ‘Descrittione dell’Istria’ and ‘Descrittione dell’isola d’Elandia, isola de Gotti’ are added with another map.

Included are 18 maps of the islands of Greece and the Eastern Mediterranean and 8 of the Americas.

The American subjects include a general map of North America, Temistican (Mexico), Hispaniola, Cuba, Jamaica and San Giovanni. There are maritime and general maps of the world. The world map is a reduced rendering of the Paolo Forlani map produced in 1565.

Tomaso Porcacchi (1530 – 1585) was an Italian writer, born in Tuscany. He lived in Venice in 1559, where he joined the celebrated printer Gabriele Giolito in making a collection of works from Greek historians and other Greek writers, all pertaining to the nation’s history. He also published various works in poetry, history, antiquities, and geography, as well as translations of several Greek authors and improved editions of several valuable Italian works.

His chief original writings are L’Isole del Mondo and Funerali Antichi di Diverdi Popoli e Naziono, con Figure. L’Isole del Mondo was first published in 1572.

Adams P1906; Sabin 64150; Shirley, 127-128.