

This Gutiérrez-Cock collaboration is also extraordinarily rare: only two complete copies are known, in the Library of Congress and the British Library. Diego Gutiérrez was a Spanish cosmographer and cartographer of the Casa de la Contratación; this office gave him access to all of the contemporary Spanish charts and maps, although 'Americae sive quartae orbis partis' demonstrates familiarity with Portuguese and Italian explorations and discoveries.
The present sheet is significant not only for including the toponym California, but for its recognition of the Amazon River system. The date 1630 has been added to the cartouche of this sheet, as it was on an uncolored copy of this sheet published "for identification" in 'Map Collectors' Circle' no. 34, plate 23; Burden calls that date curious. The present sheet appears to have one time been bound as part of a book or atlas.