This unique example is a reduction of the folio first published in 1646. It was discovered amongst a collection in the late 1980s and has since been proven to be genuine. Following the death of Dudley in 1649, the large folio ‘Dell’ Arcano del Mare’ appeared in a second edition published jointly by Antonio Francesco Lucini and Jacopo Bagnoni in 1661. The former had been the engraver of all 146 large charts in the atlas, a task that he claimed took him twelve years to complete. Many factors contributed to the authenticity of these new charts. The most important of these has to be the discovery of three similarly sized reductions in the British Library. These were identified under Lucini, whose similarly worded imprint is present. They were found to have been in the library’s possession long enough to have had their pressmarks changed once already by 1885, when they were first catalogued. These three are of the east coast of Africa and Arabia, and are reduced from the more detailed charts found in volume six of the Arcano.

The set of fifteen charts are smaller versions of the more general ones that appeared in the second volume published in 1646. Together they show that Lucini was working on a more manageable version of the atlas that for some reason was not completed. The fact that the charts were printed two or more to a page indicates that they were most probably proof printings and that the general ones were finished first. A study of the calligraphy shows distinct similarities. Any differences in style could be argued on the basis of the reduction and the possible time difference between both works. Watermark evidence unfortunately has not helped us in any way. The weight of evidence has proved to be sufficient to say that they would now have to be disproved.
 
The dating of them is based on the fact that Lucini has signed all of the plates with an honorific title Caveliere, one which he does not use in the 1661 edition of the ‘Arcano’. It is, therefore, most likely that the work followed this popular second issue, Lucini clearly seeing a market for a more manageable version. Unfortunately no other later work of Lucini is known, so we have no further guide to a date. Lucini was born in 1605. Unfortunately it has proved difficult to ascertain the date of his death, which could provide a terminal date for the work. Another contributory factor to them remaining unfinished could be the death of Lucini’s patron, the Grand Duke of Tuscany, Ferdinand II, in 1670.

A fabulous chart which takes in the whole of the Pacific Ocean framed as it is by the North West coast of America, North East Asia and New Guinea. The island of Japan makes a brief appearance but the maps most notable feature is the early inclusion of the South Pacific Islands and their relationship to one another. At this time longitude was still very difficult to determine and so many errors occurred for a further hundred years. Refer Burden (1996) 383; refer Clancy (1995) ‘The Mapping of Terra Australis’ p. 115 for the folio edition of this map.