The Latin title of the map has been interpreted by some to mean the map was created by Girolamo Benzoni. This appears to be supported by the title. To be certain, let’s take a careful look.
I contacted three experts in this antique map. The major points of our e-mail exchanges and my subsequent amplification may be seen in Vavra, pages 62-64, available on this site. What follows is based on that reference.
The Latin title reads “Occidentalis Americæ partis, vel, earum Regionum quas Christophorus Colombus primu detexit Tabula Chorographicaè multorum Auctorum scriptis, præsertim verò ex Hieronymi Benzoni (qui totis XIIII annis eas Provincias diligenter perlustravit) Historia, conflata & im æs incisa à Theodoro de Bry Leod’. Anno M D XCIIII”.
The translation from Latin to English is “Of the Western part of America, or, of those Regions which Christopher Columbus first discovered, a Chorographical Table written by many Authors, especially from Hieronymus Benzoni (who diligently surveyed those Provinces for fourteen years) History, compiled and cut by Theodore de Bry Leod. Anno M D XCIIII”.
The present map was incisa (cut) by Theodore de Bry, and the map was conflata (conflated), by Theodore de Bry from charts possibly prepared by Benzoni during his fourteen years of travel in that area (the map title confirms “XIIII” years, as does the book title, not 15 years as often reported). However, it is not likely that Benzoni’s charts, if any, survived his journey home. It is even less likely Benzoni took part in compiling this map; he would have been in his late-70s, and no record of him after 1579 is to be found.
Consider the following points regarding the probability Benzoni was not the author of the map:
(1) Fact: Benzoni would need a sea-worthy boat and a crew, including a navigator familiar with the Caribbean Sea, in order to observe and determine the location, orientation, size and configuration of the islands and of the Caribbean littoral. Benzoni does not address that subject. Alternatively, while in Italy writing the text for his book, Benzoni could have used several maps to “conflate” his own map if he had planned to put a map in his book.
(2) Fact: The words “carte”, “chart”, “maps”,’ “sketches” and “survey” do not appear in Smyth’s ten-page index nor in Schwaller’s three-page index, nor do the Italian words “grafico” and “mappa geogrfico”. Smyth had translated Benzoni’s entire book, which includes the events of several explorers and Spanish officials; Schwaller focuses on Benzoni’s own experiences. [In our email exchange, Schwaller stated he did not believe Benzoni made the map, and “He was not really surveying in a cartographic sense, although he was certainly surveying in an ethnographic one”..]
(3) Fact: There is no map in Benzoni’s second edition book from which de Bry had copied the text and three woodcuts in 1594 This was some 29 years after Benzoni first published his Historia, and there is no contemporary writing by Benzoni or about his activity after 1579 when French and German editions appeared until de Bry published Part IV in 1594. No such map is to be found in any edition published by Benzoni.
(4) Fact: And there is one other factor – time. Through a series of mishaps it took Benzoni six years to return home; he departed Peru in May 1550 and arrived home in Milan in September 1556. Before departing he had endured two shipwrecks, and during his trip home had “a long and severe disease….” (Smyth, pp. 256-259). How did Benzoni preserve any maps he may have made while spending most of those six years in that humid, tropical environment, especially when he was seriously ill?
CONCLUSION. We should not attribute to Benzoni all or any part of the map described above and included in de Bry’s Part IV of his Grand Voyages. I believe the map was created in-house by the de Brys. There is no evidence that any other cartographer or firm created the map.
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