With the beginning of the sixteenth century, a second trend in the relationships between Italian cities and Portugal with respect to the cultural and political impact of Portuguese navigations begun. Italian courts attempted to acquire world maps and travel accounts drawn up by Portuguese cosmographers and pilots and officially produced by, and to certain extent kept secret, by the Armazém da Guiné e da India, in thè Palàcio Real da Ribeira in Lisbon (at first a warehouse in which goods from Guinea and India were stored, but later an organization with multiple responsibilities related to the organization of the expansion).
Of the better-know documents of the period, the so-called Carta del Cantino (Modena, Biblioteca Estense e Universitaria, C.G.A.2, 1502), a most elaborately drawn-up map of the Armazém da Guiné e da India, bought in Lisbon by Alberto Cantino, Agent to the Duke of Ferrara Ercole d'Este, is for sure the most important.
The Cantino Planisphere is quite likely a high-end copy of the padrãos reals, "master-charts" existing in the archive and cartographic office of the Armazém da Guiné e da India. This map revealed to Italian as well as European Courts - for example, the cosmographer Martin Walseemüller, active in Saint-Diè de Vsges, is credited to have used data conveyed by the Cantino map or another map very similar to it for his 1507 planisphere and 1516 "charta marina") a new cartographic image ofthe Earth that was previously known only by those in powerful circles in the Iberian peninsula. The map Cantino brought to Ferrara to the Duke Ercole D'Este coveyed all available information to have emerged from voyages by Iberian explorers, as well as those places that remained to be discovered.
In 1497 Vasco da Gama left for India and the following year Columbus began his third voyage to the west, exploring the islands and coasts of what he assumed was Asia. At the same time, the English explored the northernmost Atlantic, with the voyage of John Cabot to Newfoundland, where Portuguese sailors (the Corte-Real brothers) had arrived in 1501-2. Following the Spanish explorations ofAlonso de Hojeda and Martin Alonso Pinzon, the Portuguese arrived in South America, with the voyages of Pedro Álvares Cabral, in 1500, and of Gonçalo Coelho, in 1501-2. In September 1502, Diogo Dias returned from his expedition into the Red Sea, while João de Nova brought news of the South Atlantic islands of St. Helena and Ascensão (Ascension). These were the final pieces of information included in the Cantino Planisphere.
The Cantino Map did show the rutters relating to overseas voyages towards the western Atlantic (the Newfoundlands in the North, bearing Portuguese flags, the Antilles bearing Spanish flags and an extensive Terra de Vera Cruz, recently discovered by a Portuguese expedition leaded by Pedro Álvares Cabral in 1500, in the South) and the Indian Ocean, to the Indian Sub-continent, thorugh the circumnavigation of Africa depicted in an extrememly accurate way. For the first time in the history of western cartography, India is given the shape of a trinagular landmass inside the Indian Ocean. At the same time, it is important to underline that the classic Ptolemaic cosmography remained the basis for the most distant or least-known areas (for example, the Persian Gulf and the eastern borders of the Eurasian oikumene, the so-called peninsula of Cattigara).
The precision with which places were located and their corresponding riches described transformed the planisphere into an encyclopedia of geopolitical and commercial strategies that resulted unvaluable for the Italian Courts.
The creation of the Cantino Planisphere was rooted in the geopolitical situation that had been developing in Portugal since the mid-fifteenth century, in the context of maritime discoveries in the Atlantic with the objective of reaching the Indian Ocean and southern Asia. By clearly depicting the so-called "Meridian of Tordesillas" (in 1494, the Treaty of Tordesillas established a referential meridian as a boundary in the middle of the ocean, thus dividing the earth into two hemispheres-one under Portuguese influence, to the east, the other under Spanish influence, to the west; the location of the meridian and the anti-meridian was neither certain nor peaceful) the Cantino Map provided the Italian Courts a visual representation of the complex jurisdiction over the Atlantic - object of a passionate dispute between the Portuguese and the Spanish - for the first time.
Some twenty years later, between 1517 and 1538 in Venice, the scholar Alessandro Zorzi prepared a four-volume collection on maritime voyages, collecting fragments of text in printed and manuscript form as well as cartographic notes, drawings, and sketches. The first volume contains many documents and new maps related to Asia and Portuguese voyages in the Indian Ocean. The second discusses the New World, highlighting Columbus's expeditions to the Antilles, Vespucci's voyages, the conquest of Mexico, and the discovery of the Straits of Magellan. The third focuses on the northern and eastern regions of Europe, and the fourth combines information from sources and maps on northeast Africa, Calicut, the Malabar coast, and the Moluccan Islands. Although they were meant to be published, the volumes never saw the light of day.
It would be left to Giovanni Battista Ramusio to successfully produce a narrative about voyages that was accompanied by maps. The three volumes of his 1550-59 Navigazioni e viaggi not only translated and published descriptions of Portuguese voyages but also gave a voice to Portuguese navigators. Ramusio credited the Portuguese with great skills in cosmography because they helped create a new image of the world-one that represented a combination of ancient geography, modern experience, mathematical cosmography, and nautical cartography. He recognized the ability of the Portuguese captains to confront tradition with experience and interviewed the Portuguese navigators and gentlemen who passed through Venice so he could compare their voyages with those of the ancients.
Among Portuguese cosmographies that circulated in Italy, two noteworthy, but today little known examples, are the outstanding nautical planispheres respectively drawn up by Portuguese cosmographers Lopo Homen in 1554 and Bartolomeu Velho in 1561. Both the maps belonged to the Grand Duke of Tuscany, Cosimo I (1519-1574) and are nowadays kept at the Museum for the History of Science in Florence. Cosimo I - he himself the author of cosmographic studies - since 1563 asked the monk cosmographer and mathematician Egnazio Danti (1536-1586) to produce geographic maps of all territories then known to be displayed in a Map Room specifically built for this purpose by Giorgio Vasari in the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence. Homem's and Velho's maps was used by, and influenced Danti's depictions of the New Worlds and of Asia in Cosimo I's Map Room, as well as other coeval Italian maps and cosmographies, such as those drawn up in Venice by Jacopo Gastaldi betwenn 1530 to 1560.
Conclusions
Maffeo Gherardo's notes concerning the Portuguese court's commission for a copy of the mappamundi of Fra Mauro; the memoirs of Francesco Castellani describing the visit of the Portuguese ambassadors to Florence and Venice; the records of the Cambini that refer to the bishop of Algarve's order of a codex of Ptolemy's Geography as well as the voyages of Bartolomeo Dias and Gil Eanes; the maps and planispheres of Andrea Bianco, Fra Mauro, and Henricus Martellus Germanus; and the documents of Piero Vaglienti, Alessandro Zorzi, and Giovanni Battista Ramusio-these all constitute concrete evidence of the circulation of cosmographic knowledge in Portugal, Florence, and Venice during the Renaissance. The principal agents of the networks of trade and knowledge that connected the Mediterranean to the Atlantic were the mercantile companies of Portugal, Florence, Venice, and Genoa; the Portuguese, Florentine and Venetian ambassadors; and the humanists based in Florence and Venice. They all contributed to the construction of a new vision of the Atlantic. No longer perceived as a physical and metaphysical boundary of the ancient inhabited world, it became a space that was navigable in all directions, offering the opportunity of both a new route to India and the so called nuovi mondi and also control of the seas.
The documentary identification of specific agents - in this case Portuguese, Florentine and Venetian - highlights the need and the opportunity to move beyond the boundaries of national history: it was the Mediterranean, with its long tradition of trade, that was one of the primary agents in the making of the Atlantic World.
Bibliography:
ALBUQUERQUE, L. de (ed.), Dicionário de história dos descobrimentos portugueses, 2 vol., Lisboa: Círculo de Leitores,1994. ALBUQUERQUE, L. de, Os descobrimentos portugueses, Lisboa : Publicações Alfa : Selecções do Reader's Digest, 1985. ALEGRIA, M. F.; Daveau, S.; Garcia, J. C.; RELAÑO, F., "Portuguese Cartography in the Renaissance", in The History of Cartography, vol.III (Cartography in the European Renaissance), ed. D. Woodward, Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2007, pp. 975-1068. CARNEMOLLA, S., Fonti italiane dei secoli XV-XVII sull'espansione portoghese, Pisa, ETS 2000. CARVALHO, J. Barradas de, À la recherche de la specificité de la renaissance portugaise : l' "Esmeraldo de situ orbis" de Duarte Pacheco Pereira et la litterature portugaise de voyages à l'époque des grandes decouvertes : contribuition à l'étude des origines de la pensée moderne, Paris : Fond. Calouste Gulbenkian - Centre Culturel Portugais, 1983. CATTANEO, A., "From the Mediterranean to the Atlantic. Venice, Florence and Lisbon. Commercial Routes and Networks of Knowledge, 1300-1550," in Encompassing the Globe: Portugal and the World in the 16th & 17th Centuries. Essays [Vol. 3]. Edited by Jay A. Levenson. Washington, D.C.: Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, 2007 pp. 13-21. Cortesão, A., Cartografia e Cartógrafos portugueses dos séculos XV e XVI (contributo para um estudo completo), 2 voll., Lisboa, Seara Nova, 1935. CORTESÃO, A., Teixeira da Mota, A., Portugaliae Monumenta Cartográfica, Lisboa, Comemorações do V Centenário da Morte do Infante D. Henrique, 5 voll., 1960 (2nd ed. 1987). D'ARIENZO, L., La presenza degli italiani in Portogallo al tempo di Colombo, Roma, Istituto Poligrafico e Zecca dello Stato, 2003. Dinis, A. J. Dias, ed., Monumenta Henricina 1443-1445, 15 voll. Coimbra, Comissão Executiva das Comemorações do V Centenário da Morte do Infante D. Henrique, 1960-1978. FARIA, A., Portugal e Itália, 2 volls, Livorno, 1900-1906. Fonseca, L. A da, Cadeddu, M. E., Gallinari, L., In viaggio verso le Americhe italiani e portoghesi in Brasile. Convegno di studi per il V centenario della scoperta del Brasile ; Roma : Società Geografica Italiana, 2004. Fonseca, L. A. da, The discoveries and the formation of the Atlantic Ocean : 14th century-16th century, Lisboa : Comissão Nacional para as Comemorações dos Descobrimentos Portugueses, 1999. GARCIA, J. C., "Cantino Planisphere," in Encompassing the Globe: Portugal and the World in the 16th & 17th Centuries. Reference Catalogue [Vol. 2]. Edited by Jay A. Levenson. Washington, D.C.: Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, 2007 pp. 14-15. GODINHO, V. M., História económica e social da expansão portuguesa, tomo I, Lisboa : Terra-Editora, 1947. GODINHO, V. M., Os descobrimentos e a economia mundial. 2a ed., 4 vol., Lisboa : Presença, 1984. GODINHO, V. M., Mito e mercadoria, utopia e prática de navegar : séculos XIII-XVIII. Lisboa : Difel, 1990. MATOS, L. de, L' expansion portugaise dans la litterature latine de la renaissance, Paris : Fond. Calouste Gulbenkian, Centre Culturel Portugais, 1984. MILANESI, M., "G. B. Ramusio e i piloti portoghesi," in Atti del Congresso Internazionale Il Portogallo e i mari: un incontro tra culture (Napoli, 15-17 dicembre 1994), ed. L. Cusati, Napoli, Guida, 1998, pp. 231-248. OLIVEIRA Marques, J., Veneza e Portugal no século XVI : subsídios para a sua história, Lisboa: CNCDP, Imprensa Nacional-Casa de Moeda, 2000. PINA MARTINS, J. de, L'humanisme portugais et l'Europe : actes du XXIéme Colloque International d'Études Humanistes; presentation José-Augusto França; avant-propos Jean-Claude Margolin, José V. de Pina Martins. Paris : Fond. Calouste Gulbenkian - Centre Culturel Portugais, 1984. RADULET, C., Thomaz, L. F. , Viagens portuguesas à Índia (1497-1513): fontes italianas para o sua história : o Códice Riccardiano 1910 de Florença; transcrição e apresent. Carmen M. Radulet ; pref., trad. e notas Luís Filipe F. R. Thomaz, Lisboa : Comissão Nac. para as Comemorações dos Descobrimentos Portugueses, 2002. RADULET, C., Os descobrimentos portugueses e a Itália : ensaios filológicos-literários e historiográficos; introd. Luís Albuquerque ; trad. Edite Caetano. Lisboa : Vega, D.L. 1991. RAMUSIO, G. B., Navigazioni e viaggi, a cura di M. Milanesi, Torino, Einaudi, 1878-1988 (First edition: Venice, Giunta, 1550-1559). RAU, V., Melis, F., "Cartas de Lisboa no Arquivo Datini de Prato", in Estudos Italianos em Portugal, 21-22, Lisboa, 1963. SILVA MARQUES, J. M. da - Iria, A. (a cura di), Descobrimentos portugueses: documentos para a sua história, 3 voll., Lisboa, Instituto para a Alta Cultura, 1944-1971. THOMAZ, L. F., Le Portugal et l'Afrique au XVe siècle: les débuts de l'expansion, Lisboa, Inst. de Investigação Científica Tropical, Sep. Arquivos do Centro Cultural Português da Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian - Volume XXVI (Série Separatas 221) 1989. THOMAZ, L. F., De Ceuta a Timor, Lisboa : Difel, 1994.
Author: Angelo Cattaneo
