A recently acquired rare historic map showing the Gulf of Mexico is featured in a new exhibit opening Aug. 3 at the Tampa Bay History Center.
Commissioned in 1524 by Hernán Cortés, who conquered the Aztec empire, the map is one of “the three most significant Florida maps” in the center’s collection, says Rodney Kite-Powell, director of the history center’s Touchton Map Library.
“The Cortés map is the first printed map with the name Florida on it,’’ he says, noting that it’s one of 15 to 20 copies in existence.
“I can’t go into great detail, but it’s a little more expensive than we normally would go,’’ Kite-Powell says.
The library contains thousands of historic maps, most of them acquired over the years by Tampa collector Tom Touchton, a founding chairman of the history center’s board of trustees. Touchton, longtime history center supporter Nell Ward and former board member Bob Bolt and his wife, Nancy, bought the Cortés map from an English dealer for the history center, Kite-Powell says.
The exhibit, called “Mapping the American Sea: A Cartographic History of the Gulf of Mexico,’’ features 35 maps and focuses entirely on the Gulf coast of the United States and Mexico.
“We’re going from 1524 all the way up through the 20
th century,” Kite-Powell says.
The history center wants to show as broad a range as possible, he says. Some of the maps are facsimiles of historic maps used with permission from other institutions. But most maps in the exhibit are originals from the center’s collection.
“We actually received permission today to use a really, really great map that was made in 1986, but it shows in great detail the U-boat activity in the Gulf during World War II,’’ Kite-Powell says. “You see detailed paths of nearly a dozen U-boats that were in the Gulf.’’
As for the exhibit’s centerpiece, Cortés’ purpose in creating the map is uncertain.
“But the map was included in a printed letter … a very long letter to the king of Spain, basically outlining the reasons why he disobeyed orders and conquered the Aztecs,” Kite-Powell says.
The king, Charles V, had ordered Cortés to be more diplomatic, he says.
“He was not supposed to take over the entire Aztec nation. He was supposed to, I think, enter into what we know as Mexico and explore it and have as friendly an interaction with the native people as he could,’’ Kite-Powell says. “Not that (the king) didn’t like the outcome or wouldn’t want the outcome. Just not quite as quickly.’’
Kite-Powell says the Cortés map is not only the first printed map to have the name “Florida” on it, but it’s also the most accurate map of the Gulf of Mexico up to 1524.
In addition to the Gulf map that includes Florida, the letter contains a map of the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlán, now Mexico City.
“It was to show how grand it was,” Kite-Powell says.
Within the last three years the history has acquired a 1588 map showing St. Augustine and Anastasia Island, which was the first view of any city in what became the U.S., Kite-Powell says. And the Cortés map of Tenochtitlán is the first map of any city in North America. The history center also has “the first map to show any part of Florida,’’ made by Italian historian Peter Martyr d’Anghiera 1511, two years before Ponce de Leon landed in Florida.
Kite-Powell refers to the three as “the trinity of historic Florida maps."
“There are, I think, less than 10 institutions in the world that have all three of those, so us acquiring the Cortés, the third of the three, was really really important to us,’’ he says.
“Mapping the American Sea: A Cartographic History of the Gulf of Mexico’’ is on display at the Tampa Bay History Center until April 27, 2025.
For more information, go to Tampa Bay History Center.