Carta XV - Carta particolare dell’Isole Celebes e Gilolo parte Austr. e di Butto, Batuliar, Timor, Seram, Banda e Amboina e altre Isole

Robert Dudley was an English nobleman, navigator, and cartographer who spent much of his later life in exile in Florence under Medici patronage. His Dell’Arcano del Mare, first published in 1646–47, was reissued in 1661 under the shortened title Arcano del Mare. The atlas was the first printed sea atlas by an Englishman and one of the first to use Mercator’s projection consistently throughout.

This detailed chart was engraved by Antonio Francesco Lucini for the first edition. It lacks the “L.” notation found on many plates from the reorganised 1661 edition, supporting its identification as a first-edition plate. It presents the eastern East Indies, covering the islands of Celebes, now Sulawesi, Timor, Seram, Banda, Amboina, and surrounding archipelagos.

This region, often referred to as the Spice Islands, was central to European maritime rivalry during the seventeenth century. Dudley’s chart reflects his use of Dutch and Iberian sources, offering intricate coastal outlines and toponyms essential to navigation and trade. The inclusion of lesser-known islands such as Buton, Batu Liar, and Giliolo, now Halmahera, suggests access to contemporary Dutch hydrographic material, possibly through VOC sources.

This chart is closely connected with Dudley’s Sunda Strait chart (223), his general chart of Asia (222), and his Australia chart (172). It also relates to later Dutch East Indies charts in the collection, including Arnold Colom’s paired East Indies charts (84), Hendrik Doncker’s East Indies charts (33, 234, and 347), and Johannes van Keulen’s East Indies charts (83and 95).