Historic Map : Bonne Map of Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia, and The Western Amazon, 1778, Vintage Wall Art

A beautiful example of Jan Janvier's c.1778 decorative map of Peru. Covers the western parts of South America from just north of the Equator south as far as the Tropic of Capricorn. Includes the modern day nations of Peru, Ecuador (here called Quito), Bolivia, and parts of adjacent Brazil, Columbia, Chile and Argentina. Offers excellent detail throughout showing mountains, rivers, national boundaries, cities, regions, and tribes.

Curiously, this map identifies the 'Ancienne demeure des Manaos.' This was once a great trading empire was centered along the Rio Negro in the Amazon Basin. The Manoa traded from Peru to the Orinoco. There were perhaps most famously encountered by Sir Walter Raleigh in Guyana while on an annual trading expedition to the region. Raleigh, seeing the gold artifacts carried by the traders immediately assumed they must be from El Dorado. He asked local tribesmen who they were and where they came from. The locales responded that they crossed a great lake and came from a rich land called Manoa. Though at the time Raleigh did not explore this further, he did later write that he discovered the great city of Manoa, capital of El Dorado, on a vast lake in Guyana. No doubt Raleigh intended to return to South America but was prevented from doing so by his unfortunate beheading back in England. As a result of Raleigh's guess work, the Lake of Parima and city of Manoa would appear for several hundred years on maps of northern South America.

A large decorative title cartouche appears in the lower left quadrant. Drawn by R. Bonne for issue as plate no. B 34 in Jean Lattre's Atlas Moderne.