Carta XVIIII - Carta particolare della costa Australe scoperta dall'Olandesi

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 chart of Australia’s western and northwestern coasts was engraved by Antonio Francesco Lucini and bears the notation “L.o6.o” in the title cartouche, placing it in Book VI of the 1661 edition. It records principal Dutch discoveries along Australia’s western and northern coastlines, including Landt van Eendracht, associated with Dirk Hartog’s 1616 landfall; the northern Australian geography linked with Jan Carstensz. and Willem Joosten van Colster’s 1623 voyage; G. F. de Wits Landt, associated with Gerrit Frederiksz. de Witt; and the later consolidation of Hollandia Nova after Abel Tasman’s 1644 voyage.

The chart also includes the west coast of Cape York Peninsula and part of New Guinea, probably drawing on Dutch manuscript hydrography associated with the Carstensz. expedition. It is among the earliest printed charts to integrate Dutch discoveries along the Australian coast into the wider maritime geography of New Guinea, the East Indies, and the surrounding seas.

Within the collection, this chart is closely connected with Dudley’s related East Indies and Pacific charts (222, 223, 224, 274, 275, and #~276).~ It also connects with Johannes van Keulen I’s East Indies charts (83, 95, and 266), Jacob Swart’s facsimile of the Tasman/VOC composite chart (229), and Johannes de Lat’s later map of Nieu Holland (389), which together trace the printed transmission of Dutch coastal knowledge of Australia.