Cook's First Tracks In The South Pacific

First edition of the first decorative map to show Cook's tracks in the Pacific, one of the most sought after early maps to depict Cook's Voyage to New Zealand, Australia and the South Pacific.

The map records discoveries made during the Endeavour's voyage of exploration in Australia, New Zealand, New Guinea and the South Pacific, as well as showing the tracks of Carteret, Byron and Wallis. The charting of the east coast of Australia and New Zealand is shown in detail, based on Cook's map of the region, the "Chart of part of the South Seas". Antonio Zatta was a leading European cartographer and publisher, and his Atlante Novissimo was one of the most beautifully produced of all eighteenth-century atlases, with much space devoted to the new discoveries of Captain Cook. Along with his contemporary, Giovanni Battista Pasquali, Zatta was responsible for the revival of taste in Venetian fine printing. Famous for his sardonic tone and as something of a controversialist, he was also well known for producing lavish editions of Italian classics and raccolte (collections of poems for special occasions). As with many maps by the famous mapmaker, the large decorative vignette dominates, and the original handcoloring is fine and sensitively rendered. The ship depicted in the vignette is almost certainly Cook's ship, the Endeavour.