Guide To Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in the Huntington Library

HM 427

VESCONTE MAGGIOLO, PORTOLAN CHART
Naples, 1516

World chart, from eastern coasts of America to India. Parchment, f. 1 (full skin); 1020 × 1520 (1010 × 1515 including left extension) mm. Red border at top edged by black band that continues around left side, no borders on bottom or right. Black and red ink for nomenclature in a minuscule hand with area names in gothic script; American coast, Scotland, and England outlined in color (very faded), other land masses in black ink only; 10 compass roses with usual 32 rhumb line network in black, red and green ink for the principal directions; latitude scale numbered from 40° S to 67° N, no longitude; 4 unnumbered scales of distance; decorated with imaginary animals, kings in pavillions, vignettes of cities, banners, 3 wind-heads, and a large medallion of the Virgin and Child. Unbound: formerly rolled, now flattened and kept in a modern case. Inscribed “Vesconte de Maiollo ianuense,” Naples, 7 May 1516. Coat of arms of first owner (?): azure, 3 bands sinister argent (?), on a chief argent (?) oak leaves in saltire, or. Pencilled number on the back “11627.” Exhibited by Paul Gottschalk in 1914 (see Boston Evening Transcript, 1 April 1914, p. 25). Sold by Otto Lange, Cat. 43 (Florence 1922) n. 28 to Henry E. Huntington in 1925. Bibliography: De Ricci, 69. G. Caraci, “A Little Known Atlas by Vesconte Maggiolo, 1518,” Imago Mundi 2 (1937) 28. PAC 29, n. 56. G. Caraci, “La produzione cartografica di Vesconte Maggiolo ed il nuovo mondo,” Memorie geografiche, Università degli Studi di Roma, 4 (1958) 240-49, 287. R. A. Skelton, “The Cartography of the Voyages,” The Cabot Voyages and Bristol Discovery under Henry VII, Hakluyt Society, Works, 2d series, 120 (1962) 308-11, 316, 318 with reproduction of Newfoundland area in pl. 14. Ganong, 481.

Abbreviations

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)
Ganong: W. F. Ganong, Crucial Maps in the Early Cartography and Place-Nomenclature of the Atlantic Coast of Canada [Toronto 1964]
PAC: Canada. Public Archives. Sixteenth-Century Maps Relating to Canada; a check-list and bibliography (Ottawa 1956)

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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