Beschreibung:

ISOLARIO - Isollario del Mediteraneo et colpho di Venetia , in Italian, ILLUSTRATED MANUSCRIPT ON PAPER [probably Venice, last quarter of the 17th century] Small 4°, 210 x 150mm. 40 leaves in a single quire, COMPLETE, 27 lines written in brown ink in a cursive hand 24 HALF-PAGE, 10 FULL-PAGE AND 3 DOUBLE-PAGE DRAWINGS OF ISLANDS in the Mediterranean, 22 located on a Mediterranean wind-rose, others accompanied by smaller wind-roses, those for the islands of Zante, Corfu, Cephalonia and Cerigo with the Venetian Lion of St Mark, small drawn buildings to indicate towns and settlements, all in brown ink (small marginal tear f.8, wear to extreme edge of final folio ). Contemporary limp vellum ruled in blind (lower cover repaired with a leaf from a ?15th-century Latin manuscript, lacking fore-edge ties). PROVENANCE: Achievement of arms on inner upper cover drawn in pen and brown ink: a lion rampant, a fess overall, above a monogram MG. CONTENTS: Lists of distances from various destinations to Candia and to Cyprus and between the islands of the archipelago ff.i verso-iii; table of contents f.iii verso; incomplete drawing and windrose f.iv; Isolario del Mediteraneo ff.1-36. An introductory paragraph (f.iv verso) explains the area covered 'Qui principiano tutte le Isole del mar mediteraneo principiando dal stretto di ercole, overo stretto de Gibilterra da la prima de tutte da ponente è Grieviza fino al isola de Cypro ultima de tutte a levante'. The main islands shown are Ibiza, Majorca, Minorca, Sardinia, Corsica, Elba, Monte Cristo and Pianosa, Palmarola and Ponsa, Ischia, Stromboli and Lipari, Malta, Sicily, Vegia, Arbe, Pag, Cherso, Lissa, Solta, Braza, Liesena, L'Aquila, Curzola, Meleda, Mezo and Zupana, Tremiti, Corfu, Paxos, S. Maura, Cephalonia, Zante, Sapientza, Cerigo, Crete, Scarpanto, Rhodes and Cyprus. Each drawing shows the outline of the island, with relief features -- hills and woods -- and major settlements, any dependent islands or hazards to shipping and, where appropriate, its relation to the main land. Each drawing is preceded by a description of the aspects of the island of relevance to a mariner: striking physical characteristics, the distance and position of the ports, their suitability for different types of vessel, the presence of sandbanks and rocks and their position. The absence of the Lion of St Marks in the wind-rose by the drawing of Crete shows that the manuscript was completed after the Fall of Crete in 1669 when the Venetians were finally conquered by the Turks. THIS ATTRACTIVE 17TH-CENTURY ISOLARIO FOLLOWS THE TRADITION ESTABLISHED BY CRISTOFORO BUONDELMONTI in his Liber Insularum Arcipelagi of ca. 1420. Although by the 16th century some Isolarii had been printed (for example, Bartolommeo dalli Sonetti ca. 1485 and Benedetto Bordone 1528), the manuscript tradition persisted; visually this example is a particularly close descendant of Buondelmonti's prototype.