Forlani's third map of the world

World map, Paolo Forlani /Bertelli, Venice, 1565

Universale Descrittione di Tutta la Terra Conosciuta Fin Qui. From: Italian composite atlases. Copperplate engraving.

The influential Italian cosmographer Giacomo Gastaldi published a world map in 1546 that remained a model for Italian mapmakers through the end of the century. This work by his fellow Venetian, Paolo Forlani, copies Gastaldi’s work but makes several changes: he converts Gastaldi’s insular Tierra del Fuego into a vast southern continent, embellishes it with unlikely fauna, and adds mountain ranges.

As with the Gastaldi work, America and Asia are joined over the North Pacific. While this map was being printed, however, that concept was being questioned by Gastaldi himself.