| Summary: | Zatta's map of the northern Pacific Coastal regions and one of the best illustrations of a late rendition of the Northwest Passage, here illustrating two wide passages from the Pacific to Hudson's Bay, based upon the mythical voyages of Admirals Cluny and de Font. The map depicts the NW coast of North America and NE coast of Asia and utilizes the Russian discoveries reported by J.N. De L'Isle. As with many maps by the famous mapmaker, the large decorative title vignette dominates. The pictorial cartouche includes a mythical desert island on which live several incongruent animals, all more suited to tropical climates - a crocodile, an elephant, a rhinoceros and an ostrich. The ship depicted in the vignette is almost certainly Captain Cook's ship, the Endeavour. Antonio Zatta was a leading European cartographer and publisher, and his Atlante Novissimo (Venice, 1775-1785) - from which this map hails - was one of the most beautifully produced of all 18th Century atlases, with much space devoted to the new discoveries of Captain Cook. Zatta's map is one of the better examples of 18th Century speculative cartography, making it one of the most sought after regional maps of the period and without doubt the most decorative. References: Suarez p. 26-7. Wagner 654.
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