De Bry, Theodore | Rare German language edition of the second part of De Bry’s Great Voyages, a seminal early work on Florida and South Carolina

De Bry, Theodore, [Le Moyne, Jacques, et al.]

Der Ander Theyl, Der Newlich Erfundenen Lanschafft Americae. Frankfurt: bey Johann Feyrerabendt, in Verlegung Dieterich von Bry, 1591

Folio (340 x 245 mm). Two engraved title pages, with letterpress titles in German printed on separate slips and pasted over the central blanks, engraved arms on dedication leaf, engraved illustration of Noah, double-page engraved map of Florida, and 42 engraved plates after Le Moyne; soiling, staining, intermittent pale spotting, some worming and creasing, occasional losses and tears at edges, mostly minor and many repaired, the paper washed leaving a pale greenish dampstaining around the extreme edges of most leaves (likely caused by the text block’s edges having been stained green), the map with a short marginal tear, a small closed marginal hole, and a long tear in the map adjacent the stub expertly repaired with no losses or infill to the printing, the second engraved title page has been trimmed around the border and laid down on thicker paper, with closed tears and a large loss at the lower corner supplied in facsimile. Near contemporary calf, gilt spine, boards with double gilt-ruled borders; some scuffing and staining, the binding an attractive remboîtage.

The rare first edition in German of the second part of De Bry’s Grand Voyages, a seminal early work on Florida and South Carolina, complete with the map and 42 engravings after Le Moyne, the earliest known images of Florida’s indigenous inhabitants.

De Bry’s work is among the best accounts of the two failed French Huguenot attempts to establish a colony in the American Southeast. In 1562, the admiral Gaspard de Coligny sent an expedition led by the skilled navigator Jean Ribaut to Florida. They sailed to Port Royal, in South Carolina, and built a fort there that they dubbed Charlefort. Ribaut left thirty men behind and returned to France for additional supplies. Upon his arrival in France, he discovered that the country had fallen into a civil war between Catholics and Huguenots, so he promptly fled to England. Meanwhile, the situation in Charlefort became dire. Their stores depleted, surrounded by a hostile native population, the men mutinied. Soon after, they built a boat and set sail for Europe. After a disastrous trip, starving to death, they were rescued by an English ship.

In 1564, with peace restored in France, Coligny sent a second expedition to America. The voyage was initially led by René de Laudonnière, who had survived the first voyage, until Ribault returned and took command of the newly established fort, named Carolina. Botanical artist Jacques le Moyne accompanied the expedition to map and record what he saw. Once the Spanish, who claimed Florida as their own territory, heard about Carolina they attacked the Huguenot “heretics.” Le Moyne narrowly escaped with his life. He made his way to England where he redrew what he could from memory.

De Bry, already working on his illustrated compendium of voyages, arrived in England around 1587 and purchased Le Moyne’s drawings. These sketches, of which just one original watercolor survives (the design for plate VIII, now at the New York Public Library), were used as source material for the 42 engravings found in this work. There is a certain amount of artistic license taken in the illustrations, but they are nonetheless historically significant, being the earliest known depictions of the Timuca Indians and their culture. They show the arrival of the French, the creation of Fort Carolina, various meetings between the Europeans and the Timucan tribes, as well as ethnographic and historical scenes. They are replete with details regarding the flora and fauna of the New World, and some illustrations, such as one showing American Indians collecting gold, were clearly intended to induce further colonization.

The map, which focuses on the Florida Peninsula and the Carolina coastline, was influential, if not very accurate. Many of its faults lie in the errors of longitude, leading to an eastward slant on the coastline. It also includes a series of oftentimes erroneous inland details, such as a group of large lakes in Florida, and a large inland sea, either Verrazzano’s sea or perhaps the Great Lakes. Other notable features include the locations of American Indian settlements, the first appearance on a map of the Appalachian mountains ("Montes Apalatci"), and a possible Niagara Falls.

REFERENCES

Burden, The Mapping of North America, 79; Church, A Catalogue of Books relating the Discover and Early History of North and South America, 179; Cumming, The Southeast in Early Maps, 14; Schwartz and Ehrenberg, The Mapping of America, pp. 64-71

PROVENANCE

David Schobinger Kuhn (early ownership signature to leaf A2r) — Private collection (Purchased from Richard B. Arkway, Inc., in 2004)