Cornaro Atlas

Summary map (p.36) of the Cornaro Atlas

The Cornaro Atlas (Egerton MS 73) is an extensive Venetian collection (c. 1489) of nautical charts and tracts, currently held by the British Library.

Background

The Cornaro Atlas is an 80-page Venetian manuscript volume, estimated to date c. 1489. It is named after the Cornaro family, one of the leading patrician families of the Republic of Venice, who once owned the volume, and whose coat of arms adorns its frontispiece. The Cornaro Atlas was brought to England in 1832, and is currently held (Egerton MS 73) by the British Library in London, UK.

The first half of the volume contains a large collection of nautical charts, faithful copies of portolan charts composed earlier in the 15th century. The second half of the volume is dedicated to a myriad of written tracts on matters of nautical interest (e.g. astronomy, sailing directions, tariffs, etc.)

Contents of the Atlas

The Cornaro atlas has around 80 pages, each page at 53 x 41 cm.

Calendars

Three of the pages are calendars:

Nautical charts

Following the opening calendars, there are 38 nautical charts depicted in 35 pages (numbered p. 3 to p. 38).[1] All the maps seem to have been copied around the same time and by the same hand.[2] Several pages can be grouped together to form a single portolan chart covering the "normal portolan" range (Black Sea, Mediterranean and Atlantic coast up to the British isles). Most cartographers are named, some of them notables, such as Grazioso Benincasa of Ancona and Petrus Rosell of Majorca, others are lesser known. The last few charts are anonymous. Notable in this collection are the final charts on West Africa ("Portuguese Guinea") by an anonymous cartographer (often attributed to Cristoforo Soligo), which seem to be based on a Portuguese nautical chart. It is one of the few indicators of the existence of Portuguese portolans from before the earliest extant specimens.

Tracts

The remaining forty pages of the Cornaro Atlas (pp. 39–78) are various tracts, lists and notes on various subjects, written in the Venetian language.

References

  1. The charts of the Cornaro Atlas are numbered 69–104 in Uzielli & Amat di San Filippo (1892: p.82ff), whose numbers are sometimes reference elswewhere. But here we follow the page numbering of d'Avezac (1850) and the COPAC entry at the British Library.
  2. D'Avezac (1850: p.16)
  3. D'Avezac suggests Benincasa; Campbell (2010) states Beccario is responsible for both Black Sea charts on this page.
  4. D'Avezac (1850:p.22); Campbell (2010).

Sources

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