Oceanica o quinta parte del mondo

Rare and little-known Italian wall map of Oceania. It was published by Stanislao Stucchi in 1823 (“Stucchi disegnò ed incise in Milano 1823”) in his “Grande atlante universale di geografia moderna”. The “Grande atlante” is an expanded version of the “Géographie Universelle” by the Franco-Danish geographer Conrad Malte-Brun. Its title is especially interesting, since it is one of the first (and of the few) maps to call Oceania a “continent”. Stucchi employed the term that Malte-Brun had recently coined, “Terres Océaniques” or “Océanique”, which he translated as Oceanica. In 1814, however, Adrien-Hubert Brué coined a new variant: Oceanía, which soon prevailed over Oceanica and (its British equivalent promoted by Arrowsmith) Australasia.