1776 - Nuove Scoperte dé Russi al Nord el Mare del Sud sí nell'Asia, che nell'America

• Format: Text
• Language: Italian
• Published: Digital Commons @ CSUMB 2017
• Subjects: Early North American map; Antonio Zatta; Northwest Passage; Bartholomew de Fonte; Northwest coast of America; Northeast coast of Asia; Pacific Ocean; Kingdom of Anian; Chinese Colonly of Fou Sang; Arts and Humanities; Education; Social and Behavioral Sciences; Baja; Hudson; Hudson Bay; Pacific; Northwest passage; Siberia
• Online Access: https://digitalcommons.csumb.edu/hornbeck_spa_1_a/36; https://digitalcommons.csumb.edu/context/hornbeck_spa_1_a/article/1035/type/native/viewcontent

Antonio Zatta’s 1776 map of the Northwest and Northeast coasts of North America and Asia, includes the region from the Hudson Bay and Great Lakes westward extending eastward to Siberia and from Cabo San Lucas on the California Baja Peninsula to as far north as Japan and the Artic. In addition to using misunderstood or mythical landmarks such as the Kingdom of Anian and the Chinese colony, Fou Sang, the map depicts the “River of the West” flowing from Hudson Bay to the Pacific Ocean representing the Northwest Passage. Zatta merged virtually every 17th and 18th century myth, fabrication and fact concerning the American West into one map. Much of the factually inaccurate information appears to be based on a legend first appearing in 1706 in an English magazine entitled, “Memoirs of the Curious” that described the purported travels of Spanish Admiral Bartholomew de Fonte. The map’s cartouche depicts an island with tropical animals that include a crocodile, an elephant, a rhinoceros and an ostrich. https://digitalcommons.csumb.edu/hornbeck_spa_1_a/1035/thumbnail.jpg