Description

The map is an example of the imaginatory powers of early cartographers. Gerard de Jode has visualized the appearance of the Earth as if seen from orbit at a vantage point above the celestial pole. Gerard de Jode's map was published in an atlas by Cornelis de Jode Speculum Orbis Terrae of which the library of the Society of Jesus in Prague New Town has a copy. This is a scanned image from a calendar, the Czech Repulic and the World, 2009. Factual information is sourced from calendar commentary written by Prof. Eva Semotanová.

The Southern Continent - Terra Austalis incognita - bears a large inscription which, translated, reads:

The great and admired western island America now called the fourth part of the world; most wealthy, most fertile and having everything necessary for life. Unknown to the ancient philosophers, cosmographers and potentates, and first discovered by command of Charles V. In this peninsula and isthmus are the greatest variations in climate and things, for the inhabitants are subject to four zones, one frigid, another torrid, the third and fourth temperate. Ter[ra] Australis incognita [The unknown Southland]

Another inscription reads: "Chasdia, called by others Tierra del Fuego".

A third inscription says:

Circulus Antarcticus: Those who live below this circle, whose area is greater than the whole of Europe, have a continuous day of 6 months and, of course, from the autumn equinox to the spring equinox the inhabitants have a frigid zone. The Pole in the Zenith: perpendicular and vertical.

A fourth inscription says: "Portuguese sailing from the Cape of Good Hope saw a promontory of this land stretching southward, but they did not visit it".

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