Tierra nueua - Public domain vintage map

Ruscelli's map of northeastern North America appeared in his 1561 edition of Claudius Ptolemy's "Geographia". The map was based on a smaller 1548 map by Giacomo Gastaldi, who took much of his information from the explorer Giovanni di Verrazano. Gastaldi's map is recognized as the first regional map of the northeast coast. Although difficult to reconcile with modern geography, note the place name 'Angoulesme,' which was Verrazano's name for New York Harbor and 'Nurumberg' (Norumbega), the name for present day New England. The fictitious inland waterway, which assumed that the Hudson and St. Lawrence were connected upriver, was adapted from a 1556 map of New England and New France by Giovanni Battista Ramusio.
Courtesy of Private Collection