Guide To Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in the Huntington Library

HM 1549

LUÍS TEIXEIRA, PORTOLAN CHART
Lisbon, ca. 1600

Nautical chart of Mediterranean area, including Europe with British Isles and portion of Scandinavia. Parchment, f. 1 (full skin), 595 × 950 (557 × 920 including extension at left) mm. Border is red band outlined in black. Black and red ink for nomenclature in a minuscule hand with area names in display script; Mediterranean Sea, Black Sea coasts and Scotland outlined in red ink, other Atlantic coasts colored green, with islands painted gold, green, red or blue; 15 elaborate compass roses, 7 with the symbols for the 8 wind directions; usual 32 rhumb line network in black, red and green ink for the principal directions; latitude scale numbered from 20° to 63° N, no longitude; 2 distance scales on borders and 2 within body of the map, all unnumbered; highly decorated with colorful vignettes of cities, banners, coats of arms and with a crucifix on the left extension. Unbound: formerly mounted on roller, now flattened in a modern portfolio. Inscribed on a scroll “Por Luis Te[ixe]ira em Lix[bo]a.” Sold in 1867 by Henry Stevens (1791-1867) to Henry Huth (1815-78), The Huth Library (1880), pt. 4, 1171. Sale of Alfred Henry Huth (1850-1910), Sotheby’s, 11 July 1917, pt. VI, n. 5914 to G. D. Smith for Henry E. Huntington. Bibliography: Cortesão, Cartografia, 2:271-72. De Ricci, 109. PMC, 3:63 with reproduction on pl. 361.

Abbreviations

Cortesão, Cartografia: A. Cortesão, Cartografia e cartógrafos portugueses dos séculos XV e XVI (Lisbon 1935)
De Ricci: S. De Ricci, with the assistance of W. H. Wilson, Census of Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in the United States and Canada (New York 1935-37; index 1940)
PMC: A. Cortesão and A. Teixeira da Mota, Portugaliae monumenta cartographica (Lisbon 1960-[62])
The Huth Library: The Huth Library: a Catalogue of the Printed Books, Manuscripts, Autograph Letters, and Engravings Collected by Henry Huth (London 1880)

C. W. Dutschke with the assistance of R. H. Rouse et al., Guide to Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in the Huntington Library (San Marino, 1989). Copyright 1989.
Henry E. Huntington Library and Art Gallery, San Marino, California.
Electronic version encoded by Sharon K, Goetz, 2003.
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