Asiae novissima tabula

Gerard de Jode was an Antwerp engraver, publisher, and mapmaker whose Speculum orbis terrae was first published in 1578 as a rival to Abraham Ortelius’s Theatrum orbis terrarum (for the 1584 edition see 252). De Jode’s atlas offered an ambitious alternative to Ortelius, but it struggled commercially against the Theatrum, which benefited from strong privileges and an established market.

This map of Asia is from the first edition of de Jode’s Speculum orbis terrae. Its Roman numeral pagination and Latin verso text are consistent with the 1578 edition. The map presents Asia from the eastern Mediterranean and the Near East across India, Central Asia, China, Japan, Southeast Asia, the East Indies, and parts of New Guinea. The map incorporates information from earlier printed sources, including Giacomo Gastaldi and Giovanni Battista Ramusio, while also reflecting Spanish and Portuguese reports from Asia. The Indian subcontinent is enlarged and projects strongly into the Indian Ocean; Southeast Asia is shown as a dense archipelago; China and Japan are more developed than in older Ptolemaic models, though still distorted; and the eastern and northern margins of Asia contain speculative geography.

The map is important as a broad Asian counterpart to de Jode’s more detailed East Indies map (24). Together, the two works show how de Jode combined large-scale continental geography with more focused mapping of maritime Southeast Asia.

Within the collection, this map is closely connected with de Jode’s East Indies map (24), Cornelis de Jode’s Novae Guineae forma, & situs (133), and the polar hemispheres (112). Together, these works show how the de Jode atlas treated Asia, the East Indies, New Guinea, and the uncertain southern world. For a later Dutch atlas treatment of Asia, compare Jodocus Hondius I’s Asiae nova descriptio (253).