Early Image of the Americas

Johann Ruysch (d. 1533)
Geographia
[Rome: Bernardinus de Vitalibus, 1507]
Atlas with hand-colored engravings
Geography & Map Division

Sixteenth-century European cartographers anxiously and expeditiously recorded the expanding world image that resulted from the Age of European Discoveries. One of the first printed maps to document these expeditions was Johann Ruysch's 1507 world map, which portrays the lands encountered by Christopher Columbus (including Cuba, Hispaniola, and the northern coast of South America) as islands off the coast of Asia, while the lands explored by John Cabot (Newfoundland and Greenland) are depicted as peninsulas attached to the Asian mainland.