Cantino planisphere

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The world map of Alberto Cantino

The map, known as the Cantino Planisphere or Cantino World Map , depicts the state of Portuguese discoveries around 1500. It is named after Alberto Cantino , who managed to smuggle it from Portugal to Italy for the Duke of Ferrara in 1502 . It is remarkable that the map shows part of the coast of Brazil . This was discovered around 1500 by the Portuguese navigator Pedro Álvares Cabral , who assumed he had found a new continent, previously unknown to Europeans. Only later was it established that it was part of the same continent that various Spanish expeditions had already encountered further north (cf. Amerigo Vespucci ).

In addition, the map contains insights from the trips of Christopher Columbus to the Caribbean, from Vasco da Gama and later also Pedro Álvares Cabral to East Africa and India, as well as from Gaspar Corte-Real and Miguel Corte-Real (the sons of the Portuguese explorer João Vaz Corte -Real ) to Greenland and Newfoundland. All but Columbus had sailed under the Portuguese flag.

History of origin

Cantino, 1502
Caverio, 1505
Waldseemüller, 1516

Most likely, the Cantino Planisphere is a copy of an official specimen of the Armazém da Guiné e Indias or Casa da Índia in Lisbon, where the new discoveries made by Portuguese sailors were recorded. This sample was kept secret and called Padrão Real , which roughly means Royal Standard . It is believed that Cantino succeeded in bribing one of the Portuguese map makers with 12 gold dukates , a considerable sum for the time, to make him a copy. The copy was probably made between December 1501 and October 1502, as a letter signed by Cantino suggests that he sent the card to the Duke of Ferrara on November 19, 1502 .

From a Portuguese point of view, the Cantino-Planisphere is likely to have been out of date again within a few months - in which more journeys connected with discoveries followed. Nevertheless, it provided the Italians with knowledge of the Brazilian coastline, and thus of this part of South America, long before other nations even learned that South America could extend so far south. The geographical information from the Cantino map was transferred to the Italian-made Caveri map shortly after it reached Italy . As a result, the latter probably became the primary source for the representation of the newly discovered western countries in Martin Waldseemüller's world map from 1507 and even more directly in his maritime map from 1516.

description

The card has the dimensions 218 × 102 cm and consists of three sheets of parchment glued together . It is drawn and colored by hand.

An inscription on the back of the card reads: “ Carta de navigar per le Isole nouam trovate in le parte de India: dono Alberto Cantino al S. Duca Hercole ”. For this reason it is called the Cantino World Map or Cantino Planisphere.

Cartographic details

The demarcation line of the Treaty of Tordesillas is already drawn on the map.

The map shows the North American coast of Florida almost in the correct position opposite Cuba . The area in the Central Atlantic, referred to by Cantino as "Terra del Rey de Portugall" (Land of the King of Portugal) , is one of the earliest representations of Newfoundland .

The note in Portuguese reads something like:

“This land was discovered on behalf of the very high, most excellent princely king Dom Manuel of Portugal , by Gaspar de Corte Real , a knight in the house of the said king, and when he discovered it, he sent a ship with some men and women which he found in the said country (to Portugal) and he stayed (there) with another ship and never returned, and it is believed that he is lost and there are many trees. "

He named the island of Reunion Dina Margabim, Mauritius Dina Arobi and Rodrigues Dina Mozare. The discoveries of Pedro Cabral and Vasco da Gama , i.e. the sea route to India and, for the first time, Brazil, are shown.

The equator ( Linha equinocialis ), the two tropics ( Tropicus cancri and Tropicus capricorni or Circulus capricorni ) and the Arctic Circle ( Circulus arcticus ) are prominently drawn on the map. The southern polar circle also described by Johannes de Sacrobosco lies outside the area shown.

The coastlines of Africa, the Mediterranean and the Black Sea, including the Sea of ​​Azov, show a high level of detail, but the accuracy of the representation of the northern European coasts and the Baltic Sea area is significantly lower.

To the history of the card

The card was kept in the ducal library in Ferrara for more than 90 years until it was brought to a palace in Modena by Pope Clement VIII . More than two centuries later, in 1859, this palace was looted and the Cantino map was lost. In the same year Giuseppe Boni, director of the Biblioteca Estense , found her in a butcher's shop in Modena.

The map was first published by Henry Harrisse in his writing Les Corte-real et leurs voyages au nouveau-monde d'après les documents nouveaux ou peu connus tirés des archives de Lisbonne et de Modène suivi du texte inéd. d'un récit de la troisième expédition de Gaspar Corte-real et d'une importante carte nautique portugaise de l'année 1502 reproduite ici pour la première fois: Mémoire lu à l'académie des inscription et belles lettres […] as an addition below the title Fragment du planisphère envoyé de Lisbonne à Hercule d'Este, duc de Ferrare avant le 19 nov. 1502 / par Alberto Cantino de la grandeur de l'original […] calqué sur l'original par M de Malatesta, Zattera, e Antilli […] et réproduit en facsimile par Pilinski père et fils […] (series: Recueil de voyages et de documents pour servir à l'histoire de la geographie depuis le 13e jusqu 'à la fin du 16e siècle, publ. sous la direction de Ch [arles] Schefer et Henri Cordier; 3. Paris: Leroux, 1883).

In 1889, Henry Harrisse published previously unpublished reports from Cantino to Ercole I d'Este regarding Vasco da Gama: Document inédit concernant Vasco da Gama : Relation adressie a Hercule d'Este , duc de Ferrare par son ambassadeur a la cour de Portugal . Ris-Orangis ( Seine-et-Oise , now in Paris), 1889.

The Cantino card is currently in the Biblioteca Estense in Modena , Italy.

The Dutch historian Gerard Vindt treats the history of the Cantinos map in a popular science novel. In it he describes, literarily free, how the only world map of the Portuguese king, classified as a state secret due to its political power, was stolen from the cartographic studio in Lisbon.

See also

literature

  • Ernesto Milano (author), Ministero per i beni culturali, Ufficio centrale per i beni librari e gli istituti culturali, Biblioteca estense e universitaria di Modena (ed.): La carta del Cantino e la rappresentazione della terra nei codici e nei libri a stampa della Biblioteca estense e universitaria . Series of publications: Il giardino delle Esperidi. 1. Il Bulino, Modena 1991.
  • Gérard Vindt: Le planisphère d'Alberto Cantino, Lisbonne 1502 . Ed. Autrement Littératures, Paris 1998, ISBN 2-86260-809-2 .
  • Guarino Alves d'Oliveira: A costa setentrional do Brasil na carta de navegar de Alberto Cantino: (charta del navigare); exame crítico e paleográfico exornado com o cimélio de Nicolò de Cavério para servir à história das viagens de Gaspar de Lemos e Gonçalo Coelho ; (1501-1503) . Ed. A Fortaleza, Fortaleza (Ceará, Brasil) 1968.
  • Miles Harvey: The Island of Lost Maps: A True Story of Cartographic Crime . Random House , New York 2000 ISBN 0-7679-0826-0 .
  • Jorge Nascimento Rodrigues, Tessaleno Devezas : Portugal - O Pioneiro da Globalização. Centro Atlântico, Famalicão (Portugal) 2007, ISBN 978-989-615-042-6 .

Web links

Commons : Cantino Planisphere  - collection of images, videos, and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Miles Harvey: The Island of Lost Maps: A True Story of Cartographic Crime. Random House , New York 2000, ISBN 0-7679-0826-0 , p. 67.
  2. ^ A b Glenn Riedel, Gerald Sammet: The world of maps: Historical and modern cartography in dialogue. Wissen Media-Verlag, Gütersloh 2008, pp. 10–11.