Antique Map centered on the Malay Peninsula

Antique map titled 'D'Indiaanze Landschappen Zeen en Eylanden, van Couchin af tot in de Moluccos (...)'. Striking map of the region from the Philippines and Formosa to India and the Maldives, centered on the Malay Peninsula. The map was used to illustrate the Dutch Translation of the Account of Nuno da Cunha in the region. Nuno da Cunha was a governor of the Portuguese possessions in India from 1528 to 1538. He was the son of the famous Portuguese navigator, admiral and ambassador to Pope Leo X, Tristão da Cunha, and Tristão's wife Antónia Pais. Nuno da Cunha fought in battles at Oja and Brava, and at the capture of Panane, under the viceroy Francisco de Almeida. Named by João III ninth governor of Portuguese possessions in India, he served from April 1528 to 1538. On his passage to Goa, he subdued the pirates at Mombassa who had been harassing the coast of Mozambique. Nuno's brothers Pero Vaz da Cunha and Simão da Cunha were expected to serve under him as second and third in command, a form of nepotism that was expected in the Portuguese Estado da Índia. However, they died on the voyage, and Nuno was forced to rely upon local networks of clientage in Goa during his long rule. In 1529, Nuno sent an expedition that sacked and burned the city of Damão on the Arabian Sea at the mouth of the Damão River, about 100 miles north of Mumbai in the Muslim state of Gujarat. Forces under his control captured Baxay (now Vasai, often mistaken for Basra in Iraq) from the Muslim ruler of Gujarat, Bahadur Shah, on January 20, 1533. The next year, renamed Bassein, the city became the capital of the Portuguese province of the North, and the great citadel of black basalt, still standing, was begun. (It was completed in 1548). Forced to return to Portugal as a result of court intrigues, he was shipwrecked at the Cape of Good Hope and drowned. Published by P. van der Aa, 1706.

Condition: Good. General age-related toning, later hand coloring. Original folding lines blank verso. Minor wear and foxing. Please study images carefully.

Date: 1706

Overall size: 24 x 17.5 cm.