ABOUT THE WORK

The copperplate map measures 11 ½” by 16” and is in good condition, recently cleaned by the Ortigas Conservation Laboratory. The Ramusio map is the first western map to cite the name “Filipina” on an island in Southeast Asia. The major significance of the Ramusio map is comparable to the 1507 German map by the cartographer Martin Waldseemuller where the word “America” first appears ever beside what is now South America. “America” was named after the Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci who explored Brazil and postulated that the continent was not Asia as Columbus had asserted. In 2001, the United States Library of Congress purchased a copy of the map for $10 million dollars. The Ramusio and the Waldseemuller maps are considered in cartographic terms as the “birthcertificates” of an island nation and a continent. Ramusio, as secretary of the Venetian Doge had access to all documents, journals and maps concerning explorations of that period, one of them the account of Ruy Lopez de Villalobos voyage to the islands. In 1542, after being met by hostile natives in various islands, the hungry crew landed on one with generous and kind natives and for that, Villalobos named the island (probably Leyte) as Filipinas, the feminized name of Prince Felipe of Spain. This designation would stick and became the contemporary name of the Republic of the Philippines.