A General Map of the Discoveries of Admiral de Fonte & others By M. De l'Isle
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- Title:
- A General Map of the Discoveries of Admiral de Fonte & others By M. De l'Isle
- Alternate Title:
- Discoveries of Admiral de Fonte
- Collection:
- Persuasive Maps: PJ Mode Collection
- Creator:
- De l'Isle, Joseph-Nicolas
- Date:
- 1754
- Posted Date:
- 2017-04-14
- ID Number:
- 2067.01
- Collection Number:
- 8548
- File Name:
- PJM_2067_01.jpg
- Style/Period:
- Before 1800
- Subject:
- Deception/Distortion
- Measurement:
- 20 x 25 (centimeters, height x width)
- Notes:
- In the Spring of 1708, the London magazine "Monthly Miscellany or Memoirs for the Curious" published a letter from Bartholomew de Fonte, the “then Admiral of New Spain and Peru, and now Prince of Chile,” describing the author's discovery of a Northwest passage from Hudson's Bay to the Pacific. "This apocryphal account is now attributed to the editor or owner of the London magazine, James Petiver. There is no reliable evidence to authenticate either the existence of de Fonte himself or of the voyage." Ireland, Willard E. Fonte, Dictionary of Canadian Biography, http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/fonte_bartholomew_de_1E.html, accessed November 23, 2014.
As Michael Buehler has put it, "This supposed letter was ignored for decades until revived [in the mid-18th century] as a principle argument for the existence of the Northwest Passage." https://bostonraremaps.com/inventory/drage-northwest-passage-1768/, accessed December 30, 2020. De Fonte's fictitious discovery was embraced and detailed by Joseph-Nicolas Delisle in his landmark "Carte des Nouvelles Découvertes au Nord de la Mer du Sud" (1750) and thereafter by a number of distinguished mapmakers. This is an English-language version of the map produced by d'Isle and published in the Gentleman's Magazine in 1754.
For an Italian example, see ID #1026, Zatta, Nuove Scoperte de' Russi al Nord del Mare del sud sí nell' Asia, che nell'America (1776).
For further information on the Collector’s Notes and a Feedback/Contact Link, see https://persuasivemaps.library.cornell.edu/content/about-collection-personal-statement and https://persuasivemaps.library.cornell.edu/content/feedback-and-contact - Source:
- Gentleman's Magazine, March & April 1754.
- Cite As:
- P.J. Mode collection of persuasive cartography, #8548. Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library.
- Repository:
- Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library
- Archival Collection:
- P.J. Mode collection of persuasive cartography
- Format:
- Image
- Rights:
- For important information about copyright and use, see http://persuasivemaps.library.cornell.edu/copyright.