Catalan Atlas

Catalan Atlas

This striking specimen, commissioned for Charles V of France (r. 1364-1380) and probably made by Majorcan Cresques Abraham, is a unique hybrid of exacting cartography and artistic prowess. The Atlas was the first map to include a compass (rather than wind) rose, and responded ably to Charles V’s request for the most accurate map in the world. The facsimile reproduces six vellum leaves, the first two rich with text and illustrations showing a cosmological encyclopedia and the latter four with a map stretching from the Atlantic to the far reaches of China. The Atlas renders the Mediterranean basin and most of Europe in detail reminiscent of other contemporary portolan charts, and draws on accounts of the recent travels of Marco Polo and Ibn Battuta to populate North Africa and the Far East with the cities of Mali and the Khanate. Resplendent with gold, silver, and pigments, the Catalan Atlas invites the viewer to lose themselves in its rivers and rhumb lines. (Nicholas Carlsen '17 and Adron Mason '16)

Cresques Abraham (?)

Catalan Atlas, Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Département des manuscrits, Espagnol 30.

.jpg

Cresques Abraham. Mapamundi, the Catalan atlas of the year 1375, ed. Georges Grosjean. Zurich: Urs Graf Verlag GmbH, 1977.

14th Century

Special Collections, Carleton College, Northfield, MN.

http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b55002481n.r=catalan+atlas.langEN

Catalan

Portolan Chart Atlas

Rights for maps held by individual publishers and institutions. Thumbnails displayed constitute fair use.

Europe, Africa, Asia