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Guide To Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in the Huntington Library
HM 33View all images for this manuscript JOAN MARTINES, PORTOLAN ATLAS
World atlas containing 14 nautical charts:
1. Russia and Near East
2. Black Sea and eastern Mediterranean
3. Aegean Sea and eastern Mediterranean
4. Western Mediterranean
5. Northeastern Atlantic Ocean, including western Europe and northwestern Africa
6. Northwestern Atlantic Ocean, including Newfoundland and portion of east coast of America
7. West Indies, east coast of North America and north coast of South America, Central America, Mexico
8. Northeastern South America
9. Southern South America, including Straits of Magellan with Tierra del Fuego as an Antarctic continent
10. Northwestern coast of South America and Central America
11. North Pacific Ocean, including coasts of Mexico, California, Asia, and Japan
12. West central coast of Africa
13. Southern Africa and Madagascar
14. Northwestern Indian Ocean, including Red Sea and Persian Gulf, parts of Africa and Arabia
Parchment, ff. i + 15 (14 sheets folded in center and pasted back to back) + i; 243 × 180 mm. (map size, 240 × 350 mm. on double page opening). Bifolia attached sequentially.
Narrow red band for border, generally cropped at bottom edge. Modern pencilled foliation.
Black and red ink for nomenclature in a minuscule script with area names in a display script; land masses outlined in color, with islands painted blue, red, green or gold; either 2 or 3 elaborate compass roses on each
chart with usual 32 rhumb line network in black, red and green ink for principal directions; latitude scales on all charts
except 2, 3, and 4, no longitude; unnumbered scales of distance on charts 2, 3, 4, and 5; highly decorated with vignettes
of cities, ships, mountains and rivers.
Bound, ca. 1600, in Italian red morocco, gold tooled on front and back covers with oval central ornament and fleurs-de-lis at corners, clasps
missing, small fragment of Italian manuscript, s. XIV, in binding; gilt edges.
Probably made by Joan Martines in Messina since nomenclature is Italian, and it is clearly in Martines’ style, markedly similar to London, Brit. Lib., Harley 3450, signed and dated Messina, 1578.
Back pastedown has “Tn[?]22” in an eighteenth century hand and “1761” on front pastedown. Also on the front pastedown, “CCCLXXXVI,” probably from the library of Maffeo Pinelli (1736-85) since a note in Italian on the flyleaf identifies this volume as a nautical chart of the Pinelli library; see J. Morelli, La Libreria già raccolta con grande studio dal signor Maffeo Pinelli (Venice 1787) pt. V, n. 3906. James Edwards sale of the Bibliotheca Pinelliana, London, 1789, n. 4906. Pastedown also has the number “1031” which may have been from a London sale ca. 1855 to Guglielmo Libri (1803-69). His sale, Sotheby’s, 28 March 1859, n. 826, with reproduction of chart 9 on pl. 32 to Bernard Quaritch for Sir Thomas Phillipps; his n. 16365. Phillipps’ sale, Sotheby’s, 26 June 1919, n. 529, to Bradleigh (nom de guerre for Thomas Fitzroy Fenwick).
Obtained privately by Henry E. Huntington through A. S. W. Rosenbach in 1924.
Bibliography: Cortesão, Cartografia, 2:226; De Ricci, 42; Wagner, Portolan Atlases, 9; Wagner, Cartography, 2:286, n. 117; PAC, 168, n. 595.Italy, ca. 1578 Abbreviations
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. All rights to the cataloguing and images in Digital Scriptorium reside with the contributing institutions. |