Description
This is the seminal, rare 1556 Giovanni Battista Ramusio map of Brazil, the first printed map to focus specifically on the area. It appeared in Ramusio's 1556
Navigationi et Viaggi, the first collection of explorers' first-hand accounts of their travels. The woodcut represents the first glimpse in print specifically of Brazil. The geographical information is generally credited to Giocomo Gastaldi (1500 - 1566). Much of that detail, and all of the socio-ethno-economic imagery of the map appears to have been drawn either from the 1519 manuscript Lopo Homem (1497 - 1572)
Carta do Brasil, or from one or another manuscript of the Dieppe school. This is significant. An overwhelming percentage of maps of South America in the 16th century, printed and manuscript, carry either imagery or text describing the indigenous population as savages and cannibals. Of the early printed maps of Brazil, this is the only to highlight instead the harvesting of the lumber, which represented the initial economic draw for Europeans: Brazil wood, which when harvested and processed produced a highly desirable dye. Not only are the natives shown harvesting trees, and hauling them to the shore - they are also shown with parrots and monkeys, also desirable trade items. More significantly, the map shows a native exchanging lumber for a cup, given by men in European garb. This is one of the only printed maps to depict the active trade which had been underway for decades between French mariners from Normandy and the Tupi peoples of Brazil. Ramusio, as Venetian ambassador to France, may well have had access to French manuscript maps of the Dieppe school (which Surekha Davies notes were remarkable for their depiction of Brazilian indigenes as trade partners rather than predators.) The ships shown sailing the Atlantic here tell a related story: The Portuguese enjoyed a Papally decreed monopoly on the exploitation and colonization of Brazil under the 1494 Treaty of Tordesillas. French / Norman trade with Brazilian natives was done in defiance of the Portuguese, frequently meeting armed resistance. Of the five ships on this map, the smaller three sport the arms of Portugal. The two larger ships in the foreground bear the French