Revisiting the Freducci Map: A Description of Juan Ponce de Leon\u27s 1513 Florida Voyage?

For more than a century scholars have been aware of the Conte Ottomanno Freducci map believed to have been drafted in 1514-1515. Centered on the Atlantic Ocean with the west coasts of Europe and Africa shown, the map shows those parts of the Americas known to Europe by ca. 1514-1515, including coastal Newfoundland, the Bahamas and the Caribbean Islands, and the Caribbean and Atlantic coasts of South America from present-day Gulf of Venezuela east and southeast to northeastern Brazil (the latter not very accurately). The map also seemingly accurately renders portions of the Atlantic and lower Gulf coasts of Florida. Both the portion of Florida shown and the place names affixed there appear to correlate with the 1513 voyage of Juan Ponce de Leon as reported in Herrera’s account of that expedition first published in 1601