Career
His most famous work is the Isolario (The Book of Islands, "where we discuss about all islands of the world, with their ancient and modern names, histories, tales and way of living") in which he describes all the islands of the known world with their folklore, myths, cultures, climates, situations, and history. Printed in Venice in 1528, the work is an example of a cartographic genre popular in Italy during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. lieutenant is intended as an illustrated guide for sailors and attempts to include all the new transatlantic discoveries.
Isolario contains an oval depiction of the world, a type of map invented by Bordone and later formalized into the equal-area elliptical Mollweide projection three centuries later.
Bordone"s map shows a very distorted Mondo Novo (New World), displaying only the northern regions of South America. North America, depicted as a large island, is labeled Terra del Laboratore (Land of the worker), almost certainly a reference to the slave trading in the area in those days (and hence the name Labrador).
The book also contains a record of Pizarro"s conquest of Peru, the earliest known printed account of this event. Of particular interest in this work are numerous woodcut maps, twelve of which relate to America.
One map displays a plan of "Temistitan" (Tenochtitlan, modern Mexico City) before its destruction by Cortez.
Also of interest is a map of Ciampagu the earliest known European-printed map of Japan as an island. Original maps from Bordone"s Isolario are prized for their historical value.