Theodor de Bry, Map of the Americas (1596)

As the Spanish and British began to explore North and South America, Theodore de Bry (1528–1598) of Flanders (now part of the Netherlands) became interested in producing illustrations of the early descriptions from the reports provided by the explorers.  He and his sons produced ten volumes of narratives and engravings related to travel in the Americas, which revived English interest in colonization after the failure of the Roanoke colony. This map of the western hemisphere was included in a 1596 volume. The engraving depicts North and South America based on information gleaned from expedition surveys and personal accounts from explorers. It was the first map of North America to show the geography of Virginia and Florida as documented by John White, who was part of expeditions to Roanoke Island in the 1580s, and Jacques Le Moyne, who participated in a French expedition to Florida in 1564. Christopher Columbus, Amerigo Vespucci, Ferdinand Magellan, and Francisco Pizarro, are shown in each corner of the map, along with the date of their discoveries of land in North or South America.