Carta Della Baja Di Hudson

Italian version of Bellin’s map of the Hudson Bay.

This attractive copperplate engraved map was originally published in an Italian edition of Antoine Francois Prevost’s (l’Abbe Prevost) Histoire Generale des Voyages, an important 18th-century travel volume. The maps were created by Jacques Nicholas Bellin, French Royal Hydrographer, and show a wealth of detail with clarity and contemporary geographical precision.

The image shows the region around Hudson Bay and Baffin Island, with the latter depicted as an archipelago bisected by a large bay. Several fortifications and colonial settlements are labeled. The York Factory, a Hudson’s Bay Trading Post, is shown at the mouth of the Hayes River. Just north is the Prince of Wales Fort, a stone structure built in the 1730s whose ruins can still be seen today. Near the south of James Bay is a cluster of toponyms that include Albany, Monsipi (Moose Factory), and Fort Rubert – all Hudson’s Bay Company outposts.