The planisphere of Cantino is the oldest chart which represents the Portuguese discoveries. It draws its name from Alberto Cantino, a representative and spy of the duke of Ferrare, which succeeds in 1502 clandestinely leaving it the Portugal to bring it in Italy.
It is preserved at the Biblioteca Estense , with Modena (Italy).
Description
In its current form, the planisphere measures 2,18 × 1,02 meters. It is marked: Carta da navigar per Insulates it nouam tr in leaves India: dono Alberto Cantino Al S. Duca Hercole (“nautical chart of the islands lately found in the area of India: data by Alberto Cantino with S. duke Hercules”). There does not remain any more edge or margins, undoubtedly following the ill treatments undergone during its history.The inscriptions are a mixture of Gothic letters and the cursive ones, in red and black, which suggests the participation of several authors, or the addition of notes after the execution of the chart. Perhaps some of these notes come from Amerigo Vespucci, which would have been questioned on its return of voyage.
The continents and large islands are represented in green, while the small islands are red or blue. Flags mark the sovereignty of the territories, one thus finds a flag Spanish close to Maracaibo. The equator is represented by a thick gilded line, and the line of demarcation between the Spanish territories and Portuguese by a thick blue line. The tropics and the Arctic Circle correspond to fine red lines. Many a loxodromic roads and pink of the winds connect this chart with a Portulan.
The chart presents in particular part of the Brazilian coast, accidentally discovered in 1500 by the explorer Pedro Álvares Cabral - who then had correctly put forth the assumption that it had arrived on a new continent - then explored by Gonçalo Coelho and Amerigo Vespucci. It is represented with large green and gilded trees, small trees or blue bushes, and Perroquet S with dominant red.
This coast was improved by affixing a band of parchment on the chart, which modifies contours between the east of the Golfo fremosso and a point located just at the south of the Rio of sã Franc ° , this last term belonging to the addition. According to E. Roukema, the construction of the Brazilian coast was done in three stages: initially, at the time of the voyage of Cabral, then, at the time this that of Affonso Gonçalves, finally, at the time of that of João da Nova.
The North America is indicated in several parts: the south of the Greenland, is of Newfoundland, and a peninsula which could be the Florida. The absence of coast between Newfoundland and Florida suggest that a maritime passage towards China remains possible.
The Greenland overlaps the Arctic Circle. The adjacent cartouche indicates that the Corte-Real brothers identified it like the Eastern coasts of Asia ( Punte de Assia ) and there that they could not unload.
The east coast of Newfoundland is in the east of the papal line of demarcation, with other large trees green and gilded with the long trunks, and the mention Terra del Rey de Portuguall . They correspond to description that made of them the brothers Gaspar and Miguel Corte-Real in 1500-1501.
The the Antilles appear with the mention has antilhas del Rey of castella ; it is the first use of the word antilhas in a chart.
In the south-east of the Africa, one finds Madagascar and the archipelago of the Mascareignes, before his “official” discovery by Pedro de Mascarenhas in 1512 or 1513.
History
The planisphere of Cantino is in fact a copy of a large chart which hung in the room of the charts of the Casa da Mina E India , the administration of exploration and colonization of the new territories, with Lisbon. It was emitted the assumption that Cantino would have bribed a Portuguese cartographer or an Italian illustrator so that it makes him a copy of it. The year of realization, 1502, is known with a great confidence: there exists a letter of Cantino dated November 19th, 1502, intended for the duke of Ferrare, where it mentions that the chart was deposited at one of its agents with Genoa. The most recent legend being on the chart is the mention of the disappearance of Gaspar Corte-Real, reported in October 1501; the chart also contains unknown details before the return of the third Portuguese fleet of João da Nova, between the 11 and on September 13rd, 1502.If this chart could help the Italians in their knowledge of the world in their revealing many territories then unknown for them, it was out-of-date in the few following months, because of the posterior cartographic voyages of the Portuguese. However, its importance in the Italian-Portuguese commercial reports/ratios is not with completion to neglect, because this chart made known to the Italians of the existence of the coast of Brazil and a good part of the Atlantique coast of South America a long time before the other European nations do not suspect that South America could extend so far towards the south.
The geographical information given by the chart of Cantino was thereafter reintegrated in the Italian chart of Caverio, drawn shortly after the return of Cantino in Italy. The latter became in its turn the reference for the establishment of the Planisphère of Waldseemüller of 1507 under the patronage of Rene II, duke of Lorraine.
See too
Sources
- Harvey Miles, The Island off Lost Maps: In True Story off Cartographic Crime . New York: Random House, 2000. ISBN 0-7679-0826-0. (Also ISBN 0-375-50151-7).
- J. Siebold, Slide #306 Monograph: Chart for the navigation off the islands lately discovered in the shares off India, known ace the Cantino World Map to read on line
- E. Roukema, Brazil in the Cantino map , Imago Mundi , volume 17 (1963), pages 7-26
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