Between
1536 and 1564 an enterprising Genoese chartmaker, Battista
Agnese, produced in Venice a number of remarkably accurate
and beautifully decorated nautical or "portolan" atlases
on vellum for merchant princes and ranking officials. A
version of this oval world map appeared in each of the seventy-one
such atlases that have survived.
This
CD contains the entire Agnese Atlas (14 maps) in MrSid format.
This format allows you to see the entire map or drill down
for the smallest details. If you printed one of these maps
at full size, it would be about 36"x36" (way more
than can fit on a computer screen) so you can imagine how
much detail they all have. (MrSID software is included on
the CD.)
To
see a sample of the detail available, >>>click
here<<<.
Agnese
liked to show new discoveries and explorations of his maps,
and this one includes the route that Magellan took around
the world, inscribed in pure silver that later tarnished.
He also traced, in pure gold, the route from Cadiz, Spain,
to Peru, with overland portage across the Isthmus of Panama.
This was the route of the treasure ships -- heavily armed
galleons that carried vast amounts of silver from Peru to
Spain.
On
the Agnese map continents are in yellow and green watercolors,
mountains in brown, white, and silver, rivers (including the
legendary sources on the Nile) in blue, and the Red Sea and
Gulf of California in red. (In 1539 the explorer Francisco
de Ulloa, noting that the water in the Gulf of California
had a reddish tint, named it the Vermilion Sea to distinguish
it form the Red Sea.)
In
the blue-and-gold clouds surrounding the oval world are cherubs,
or wind heads, representing the classical twelve-point winds
from which modern compass directions evolved. The symbolic
treatment of winds first occurred in world maps of the tenth
century on which the windblowers are portrayed as human figures
seated on Aeolus bags. With one hand they hold trumpets or
horns, and with the other they squeeze the wind out of the
bags. This symbolism was at least as old as Homer, who wrote
of Aeolus, the son of Hippotes, god and father of the winds
and ruler of the island of Aeolia. Figures of old men, cherubs,
or angels as windblowers, with or without Aeolus bags, were
popular illustrations on maps up to the eighteenth century.
In some cases the facial expression and size of the blast
emerging from the mouth told a great deal about the wind,
without further explanation.
This
CD is created in PC format using an HTML menu to navigate. To
use this CD, you must either be using a PC or a Macintosh in
PC emulation mode. Viewing the maps also requires installing
a software program called MrSID which is included on the disk.
This is a PC based program and will run on a Macintosh in PC
emulation mode.
In
the blue-and-gold clouds surrounding the oval world are cherubs,
or wind heads, representing the classical twelve-point winds
from which modern compass directions evolved. The symbolic
treatment of winds first occurred in world maps of the tenth
century on which the windblowers are portrayed as human figures
seated on Aeolus bags. With one hand they hold trumpets or
horns, and with the other they squeeze the wind out of the
bags. This symbolism was at least as old as Homer, who wrote
of Aeolus, the son of Hippotes, god and father of the winds
and ruler of the island of Aeolia. Figures of old men, cherubs,
or angels as windblowers, with or without Aeolus bags, were
popular illustrations on maps up to the eighteenth century.
In some cases the facial expression and size of the blast
emerging from the mouth told a great deal about the wind,
without further explanation. 