Beschreibung:

PORTOLANO, in Italian, DECORATED MANUSCRIPT ON PAPER [northern Italy, perhaps Genoa, 3rd quarter 15th century] 4° (227 x 160mm). 78 leaves: 1-7 10 , 8 8 (of 10, ix & x cancelled blanks), COMPLETE, 24 lines written in brown ink in a semigothic cursive in a scored ruling of two pairs of vertical and twenty-five horizontal lines, justification: 158 x 115mm, rubrics and capitals in pink, thirteen two- or three-line initials of blue with red penwork flourishing, opening INITIAL OF BLUE WITH EXTENSIVE FLOURISHING of red penwork into upper and lower margins (opening folio darkened, occasional spotting or staining). 16th-century goatskin stamped in blind (restored). This interesting and remarkably complete late 15th-century portolano, documents navigation throughout the mediterranean, as well as up the Atlantic coast to Ostend, and must have been compiled after 1445, the date of a shipwreck off the coast of Spain recalled on f.13. The text exists in five other manuscripts, but only one of these (Florence, Bib. Naz. Magliabechiano XIII, 88) contains all the sections present here. On the basis of various dialect terms it is thought to be of Genoese authorship (Uzielli & Amat, Studi biografici e bibliografici sulla storia della geografia in Italia , Roma 1882). The main section of the text, ff.1-66, follows the course of a coastal journey beginning at Ostend. It continues through the English Channel, along the Atlantic coast of France and Spain and, once through the straits of Gibraltar, keeps to the north coast of the Mediterranean, goes down Italy, all around Sicily, and then follows the Adriatic shores and on into the Aegean, where it goes around the Greek Islands, through the Dardanelles and into the sea of Marmara and the Bosphorus. Leaving Constantinople the route continues along the coasts of Asia Minor and the shores of Africa until, via the straits of Gibraltar, it concludes at Cape St Vincent, the most southerly point of Portugal. As well as citing all the places passed, large and small, the islands that a navigator might encounter are also listed. The distances between each place are given and the direction of the prevailing winds; distinguishing features of the various ports are described to enable their identification. This account is followed by various appendices. The first, ff.66-71, listing the principal routes converging on each port, starting from Cape St Vincent to Malaga and paying particular attention to Majorca and southern Spain, and giving the distances involved. The other sections, ff.71-78v, all relate to the coast of England or the voyage from England to Flanders, informing on the depth of the sea along the coast and the distance to be kept from the coast in leagues - each league equalling 4 miles - according to the states of the tides and the quarters of the moon. The extension of the standard portolano outside the Mediterranean up to England and Ostend, suggests a connection with the wool trade from the Low Countries to Tuscany.