Nuova, e corretta Carta dell’ Isola di Terra Nuova.

Title

Nuova, e corretta Carta dell’ Isola di Terra Nuova.

Description

Map shows the island of Newfoundland (Canadian province Newfoundland), it is located off the northeast coast of North America in the Atlantic Ocean.

ca. 1700

Artist

Rossi (1627-1691)

Giovanni Giacomo De' Rossi was the son of the founder of the most important and active printing press of the 17th century in Rome. Begun in 1633 by his father Giuseppe (1570-1639), the press passed firstly to Giacomo and to his brother Giandomenico (1619-1653), and then later to Lorenzo Filippo (1682-?); in 1738 it became the Calcografia Camerale, from 1870 until 1945 the Regia Calcografica, and today it is known as the Calcografia Nazionale. Here are conserved, amongst many others, the plates of Giambattista Piranesi (1720-1778). Giacomo De' Rossi was the most involved of all the various family members who ran the press, and he worked between 1638 and 1691, and was to take the company to the height of its success.

Historical Description

Newfoundland is the site of the only authenticated Norse settlement in North America. The first European visitors to Newfoundland were Portuguese, Spanish, French, Dutch and English migratory fishermen and whalers. The island was visited by the Genoese navigator John Cabot (Giovanni Caboto), working under contract to King Henry VII of England on his expedition from Bristol in 1497. In 1501, Portuguese explorers Gaspar Corte-Real and his brother Miguel Corte-Real charted part of the coast of Newfoundland in a failed attempt to find the Northwest Passage. After European settlement, colonists first called the island Terra Nova, from "New Land" in Portuguese and Latin. The name Newfoundland in popular discourse came from people discussing the "New founde land" in the new world. On August 5, 1583, Sir Humphrey Gilbert claimed Newfoundland as England's first overseas colony under Royal Charter of Queen Elizabeth I of England. The indigenous people on the island at the time of European settlement were the Beothuk, who spoke an Amerindian language of the same name. Later immigrants developed a variety of dialects associated with settlement on the island: Newfoundland English, Newfoundland French.