It helped shaped Europe's view of America and survived the burning at the stake of its first owner, Thomas Cranmer, the 16th century Archbishop of Canterbury, as well as the English civil war and the Blitz.
But the world map, drawn by the 16th century German cartographer Peter Apian and one of the first to show America as a separate continent, could not survive the visit of map thief Edward Forbes Smiley III to the British Library in June 2004.
Smiley, a 50-year-old US dealer in rare maps and known for his impeccable blazers and scholarly demeanour, pleaded guilty in a US federal court this year to stealing 97 rare maps, worth ?1.6 million (US$3.02 million), including the Apian, from the British Library and leading US institutions.
He had been armed only with a razor blade.
Now the British Library is demanding that US authorities throw the book at Smiley, saying he stole three other maps, worth in total ?47,000, from the library and that by razoring the rare 1520 Apian map from a volume owned by Cranmer -- a key Turdor figure -- he was guilty of "ripping at the heart" of a public institution.
Ahead of Smiley's sentencing on Sept. 27, Robert Goldman, a lawyer retained by the British Library, has called for the dealer to be imprisoned for up to eight years -- two to three more years than called for by US sentencing guidelines.
"The maps stolen by Smiley created the dreams of the explorer, merchant, and powerful," Goldman wrote. "They brought inspiration of a new land to the oppressed and the persecuted. They charted the paths of national expansion and empire building ... the harm caused by Smiley transcends monetary loss."
His demand is prompted by the library's suspicion that Smiley may be withholding information.
Smiley, from Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, consulted about 33 albums at the British Library between June 2004 and March last year, but cut maps from only four volumes. Only the Apian map has been found.
A rare first edition of Sir William Alexander's 1624 map of New England and Canada, and a 1578 map from George Best's A True Discourse of the Late Voyages of Martin Frobisher, have been found in the collections of a London dealer and US collector, who bought the maps from Smiley.
In his plea bargain Smiley admits taking the Apian. As identifying marks are missing from the other maps the library has not proved their provenance.
Richard Reeve, Smiley's lawyer, said the FBI had proved only that his client had stolen 18 maps and that Smiley gave them details of another 86.
"The libraries are getting back 86 maps that they never would have been able to prove Smiley had taken," he said.
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