This map of New Guinea (Nova Guinea) and the Solomon Islands (Insulae Salomonis) first appeared in the Magellanica section of Caert-Thresoor, the cpmpact, pocket-sized atlas first published in Dutch in 1598 under the imprint of Barent Langenes in Middelburg, with copies offered for sale through the Amsterdam publisher Cornelis Claesz. Conceived as an affordable and portable alternative to large-format atlases, Caert-Thresoor brought together terrestrial, maritime, and cosmographical material for both learned readers and a wider public.

The maps and illustrations of the atlas were engraved chiefly by Pieter van den Keere (including the present plate and #285), with substantial contributions by Jodocus Hondius (#294, #295, #296). The authorship of some plates, such as the East Indies map (#388), remains uncertain and may involve either engraver.

After its first appearance in 1598, the atlas was expanded and standardised under Claesz’s direction and developed into a multilingual series. A Latin edition appeared in 1600 under the title Tabularum geographicarum contractarum, with the text revised by Petrus Bertius. This was followed by the expanded libri quinque edition of 1606, from which this map derives. The presence of latitude markings confirms that this example belongs to the post-1599 editions. French and later German versions further extended the atlas’s circulation well into the seventeenth century.

Engraved by van den Keere, the map draws its cartographic details from Petrus Plancius's map of the Spice Islands (#72). Both the coastal outlines and the inscription beneath New Guinea, referring to Andrea Corsali, are taken directly from Plancius’s work. The inscription reads:

Nova Guinea a nautis sic dicta, quod eius litora, locorumque facies Guineæ Africanæ multum sunt similia. Ab Andrea Corsali Florentino videtur dici Terra de Piccinacoli. Partem autem esse continentis Australis magnitudo probabile facit.

Translated:

New Guinea is so named by seafarers because its coasts and the appearance of its places closely resemble those of African Guinea. According to the Florentine Andrea Corsali, it appears to be called the Land of the Piccinacoli (small people, or pygmies, in early Italian usage). Its great size, moreover, makes it probable that it forms part of the southern continent.

The suggestion that New Guinea might constitute part of Terra Australis reflects late sixteenth-century geographical uncertainty about the extent and configuration of the southern continent.

Peter van der Krogt, ed., Koeman’s Atlantes Neerlandici, vol. 3 (’t Goy-Houten: HES & De Graaf, 1997–), 376-381 (no. 341:01).

Günter Schilder, Monumenta cartographica Neerlandica, vol. 7 (Canaletto, 2003), 457