An elegant world map on a cordiform projection, here in the rare first state before the addition of the title, showing the eastern seaboard of North and South America, and the whole coastline of Central America with some accuracy, however North America is shown joined to Asia as Marco Polo described it. Surrounded by a magnificent border of angels, cherubs, and putti. The columns supporting the map on either side, include Cimerlino's dedication to Henry Fitzalan, Earl of Arundel on the left, and his arms on the right. Cimerlino's imprint appears within a table upper left, and his initials, "IPc", lower right.

With the discovery of the new world, a western hemisphere, and an acceptance that the world was indeed round, came the problem of how to express that convincingly on a flat surface: with two circular hemispheres, as an oval, as globe gores, as a rectangle, or as Cimerlino imagines it here, heart-shaped.

In about 1500, "Johannes Stabius, a professor of mathematics in Vienna, invented a series of three heart-shaped (cordiform) projections publicized by Johannes Werner of Nuremberg in 1514. All three were mathematically of equal area (unlike Ptolemy's projections) and were developed into several influential maps... The first Werner-Stabius projection was apparently not used, while the third was apparently first employed by Orance Fine for a world map in 1534/36 that was copied by Giovanni Paolo Cimerlini in 1566 [as here]" (John P. Snyder "Map Projections in the Renaissance", in "The History of Cartography", edited by David Woodward, 2007, volume 3, page 370).

Although Cimerlino (1534 – after 1609) was a Veronese artist, it has been argued that the map was most likely published in Venice due to the paper and ink used. Biographical information on Cimerlino is scarce. The few signed works from his hands-among which there is no other maps-are all dated between 1566 and 1570.

Cimerlino dedicated his beautiful map to Henry Fitzalan, twelfth Earl of Arundel and Lord Maltravers (1512-1580) who was a godson of King Henry VIII and a leading nobleman at the Tudor Court, serving Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary Tudor and Elizabeth I. As a leader of the Catholic nobility, he fell into disgrace in 1564. Fitzalan bridged the troubles at home with a tour to Italy, where he may have met Cimerlino.

The rare first state, before the addition of the title, recorded in only one institutional example: Harvard University, Cambridge.