Portolany w renesansowych atlasach żeglarskich Angela Freducciego z 1554 i Antonia Milla z 1583 roku

• Authors: Lucyna Szaniawska

Title variants

EN

COMPARING THE GEOGRAPHICAL SPACE DISPLAY IN PORTOLAN CHARTS OF ANGELO FREDUCCI (1554) AND ANTONIO MILLO (1583)

• Languages of publication: PL

Abstracts

EN

Portolan charts - manuscript maps drawn predominantly by cartographers connected with Mediterranean culture - described mainly maritime areas and adjacent coastlines. Equipped with complementary descriptions, portolan charts presented geographical objects and their mutual relations. They served the purposes of navigators sailing around the Mediterranean and neighboring basins. Together with successive explorations of new maritime routes and lands they covered also the Atlantic Ocean as well as the North and Baltic Seas. The earliest representations of portolan charts date back to the 13th century, yet their production continued up until the beginning of the 18th century. Among the main features common for this type of cartographic presentation there are: - map structure dependent on line configuration of compass points and roses (derived from surveying magnetic directions and distances covered); since the half of the 16th century it was complemented by lines of longitude and latitude (on the basis of latitude measurement performed on decks of sailing ships), - elaborated map drawing in line with exaggerations of scale of lands' and islands' coastline, - selective marking of toponyms and distinguishing their importance and features by using different colors of pigments, - determining political affiliation of objects, mainly ports and fragments of coastline (without demarcating borderline on the map), - limited level of geographical information regarding interiors and uncharted territories, - including data provided by geographical explorations. The paper deals with comparative analysis of two atlases of the 16th century, comprising only portolan charts: the earlier one - a nautical atlas of the Old World, drawn in 1554 by Angelo Freducci, a cartographer of Ancona, and the later one - copied in 1583 by Antonio Millo, a Greek cartographer residing in Venice.

Keywords

EN

HISTORY OF CARTHOGRAPHY; PORTOLAN CHARTS; ANGELO FREDUCCI; ANTONIO MILLO

• Publisher: Polska Akademia Nauk. Instytut Historii Nauki im. Ludwika i Aleksandra Birkenmajerów
• Journal: Analecta. Studia i Materiały z Dziejów Nauki
• Year: 2012
• Volume: 21
• Issue: 1-2(40-41)
• Pages: 153-172

Contributors

author

Lucyna Szaniawska

• Biblioteka Narodowa, Warsaw, Poland