Girolamo Ruscelli; 1504-1566.

A venetian editor of fame, Ruscelli is mostly known for his 1561 edition of a Ptolemy's Geographia. This atlas was re-edited a number of times, specially in 1562, 1564, 1574, 1598 and 1599. For this purpose, he used slightly larger versions of the maps Giacomo Gastaldi's compiled in 1548 for his own Geographia.

Isola Spagnola nova.

This map (9 5/8" X 7 1/16") was originally engraved with a map of Cuba on the same copper plate for the 1561very rare first edition of "La Geografia di Claudio Tolome". Once printed, the two maps would be separated and inserted in the book to illustrate respectively chapter #33 (Isola Cuba) and #34 (Ysla Espaniola nueva). Hence, the plate mark of both maps runs off the top of the page. Starting in 1574, new individual plates were engraved, which lasted until the last edition in 1599.
It shows exactly the same details as depicted in the 1548 Gastaldi map. In particular La Isabela on the northern coast (town established, in 1493 by Colombus on his second trip, to replace the ruined La Navidad which had harbored the 40 crewmen he could not take home after the wreckage of the Santa Maria the year earlier). La Isabela was in turn abandoned to the profit of Santo Domingo, founded in 1496 on the southern coast (making it by a long shot the oldest town in the Americas continually occupied till today).
Italian text on verso.