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MAGGIOLO, Giovanni Antonio (d. before 1600)
[Portolan chart of Europe. Genoa:] 1577, signed ‘Carta navicatoria di mano di Giovan’ antonio da Maiolo quondam Visconte fatta nell’ anno MDLXXVII.’
Richly decorated and hitherto unrecorded portolan chart by the official cartographer to the Republic of Genoa. ‘To the historian of late medieval and early modern European cartography, the portolan charts are fundamental documents, if mysterious in their origin and precocious in their precision’ (Campbell p.371). Like most other portolan charts, this is centred on the Mediterranean, but extends westwards into the Atlantic to cover the British Isles, northwards to show the Baltic Sea and southern Sweden, and eastwards to include the Black Sea. The west African coastline extends quite far southwards, beyond Capo Bianco (Ras Nouadhibou) towards Senegal.
Portolan sea charts sprang unheralded into being in the 13th century and were used extensively by seamen until the 18th century. Their development is not well understood: no precursors can now be traced. However, it might be said that with the creation of portolan charts, modern geography was born through their pragmatic and empirical approach to cartography. Portolan charts do not utilize lines of latitude and longitude, but instead they are criss-crossed by loxodromes and rhumb-lines representing the points of the compass. Coastal forms are drawn according to the navigators’ reports of appearance, direction and estimated distance between the points. Since they were primarily concerned with coastal navigation, portolan charts are generally devoid of inland information, but the coast lines are filled with place-names that reach inland so as not to obscure the coastal detail.
The blank inland areas presented an opportunity for the portolan cartographer to decorate charts for a solely land-based market interested in seeking ornamental status symbols; it may be assumed that only a fraction of portolan charts produced have survived to the present day, and the majority of those lost were unadorned with decoration, rather serving as utilitarian navigational aids, and thus subject to wear and tear, and a hazardous working environment of saltwater and humidity.
The decorative elements of these charts evolved stylistically from quite an early point in their development, with Campbell identifying the ‘Catalan style’ and the ‘Italian style’ (p.392). The former tend to have a host of decorative rivers, mountains, cities and other features, while the latter is far more restrained, almost completely devoid of anything that is not functional. Campbell also identifies an intermediate style, which he attributes to ‘stylistic interchange between the Catalan-speaking chartmakers of Majorca and their Italian counterparts. This is most noticeable in the way Genoese practitioners imitated the decorative devices of the Catalans’ (p.393).
The present chart was almost certainly made in Genoa, and is executed in this intermediate style. It is signed and dated by the cartographer Giovanni Antonio Maggiolo. He came from a family of chartmakers who held the state’s privilege and monopoly of map production in Genoa. The founder of this veritable dynasty of cartographers was Vesconte Maggiolo, born in Genoa probably around 1475. Nothing is known of his apprenticeship, but by 1518 he was in Genoa, ‘famed for his skill in drawing up geographical maps and nautical charts’ (quoted by Astengo, p.210). In 1519, Vesconte was appointed magister cartarum pro navigando (official cartographer to the Republic). Astengo points out that a chart of 1525 bears the signatures of both Vesconte and Giovanni Antonio Maggiolo, ‘who was probably the cartographer’s eldest son and yet still a very young apprentice. The aim was clearly to present the young man as fit to succeed his father, as duly happened four years later when in a ruling of 16 April 1529 the Senate extended the privileges of Vesconte’s monopoly to include his sons Jacopo and Giovanni Antonio’ (Astengo, p.210). Vesconte’s last extant chart is dated 10 December 1549, and he died in 1551, after which Jacopo took over the bulk of the family’s map production; his first chart is signed ‘condam [sic for quondam] Vesconti’. Jacopo seems to have stopped making charts around 1573, with his brother Giovanni Antonio continuing the tradition. Extant charts by Giovanni Antonio are signed and dated 1565 (Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Vienna), 1575 (Biblioteca del Consiglio Regionale della Sardegna, Cagliari) and 1578 (Institute of History of Russian Academy of Sciences, Saint Petersburg); recently, in 2021, a fragment of a portolan chart discovered in the Notarial Archives, Malta, and has been identified as being by Giovanni Antonio. The present chart, hitherto unknown, is dated 1577 and similarly signed with the flourish ‘quondam Visconte’, thus indicating his cartographic family heritage.
Stylistically, this lot has much in common with the 1565 chart in the Austrian National Library: the necks of both charts are decorated with the Virgin standing on a cloud as she holds the Christ child; the cities of Genoa and Venice are almost identical, and the two different styles of wind roses – one composed of a small eight-point rose, the other of a larger white disk framed by a narrow ring on which a total of 32 points are marked (eight of them identified by the initials or symbols of the eight main winds) – are consistent with those used by Vesconte, Jacopo, Giovanni Antonio and his son, Baldassare Maggiolo.
However, compared with Giovanni Antonio’s 1565 chart, this lot has a much broadened geography, with the coastline of Spain now extending northwards to include France, the Low Countries, Germany, Denmark, and a portion of the Baltic and southern Scandinavia. The British Isles too are depicted, Ireland with its distinctive island-crowded Clew Bay, while further to the west in the Atlantic Ocean lies the mythical island of Brasil, which according to legend is cloaked in mist except for one day every seven years, when it becomes visible but still cannot be reached.
This 1577 chart is also far more decorated than its 1565 counterpart: in addition to Genoa and Venice, a further 12 cities are depicted, with Alexandria, Tripoli, Tunis, Algiers and Salé in North Africa, Lisbon, Seville, Barcelona, Arles, Genoa, Venice and Ragusa (Dubrovnik) in the Mediterranean, as well as Istanbul and Rostov-on-Don, all but the latter with flags flying atop their towers and spires. The number of wind roses is increased from four to six, including a small, but very attractive, central wind rose between Sicily and Sardinia.
Not recorded in in the censuses by Astengo and Pflederer; T. Campbell. ‘Portolan Charts from the Late Thirteenth Century to 1500’ in The History of Cartography, Volume 1 (1987), pp.371-463; C. Astengo. ‘The Renaissance Chart Tradition in the Mediterranean’ in The History of Cartography, Volume 3, Part 1 (2007), pp.174-262.
Manuscript portolan chart, ink and colours on vellum sheet, maximum dimensions 607 x 830mm, including two extended sections to accommodate rhumb lines running into the Atlantic Ocean, verso blank save for small ink inscription ‘Carta da Navigare’ in a later hand, neck with Virgin standing on a cloud holding Child, compass rose and signature in blank area of Atlantic, the chart extending from Mauritania to the Sea of Azov, from Ireland to the Nile, coastlines in green, islands in red, blue and green, rivers in blue, place-names written in red and sepia, 15 detailed town vignettes, including Alexandria, Tripoli, Tunis, Algiers and Salé in North Africa, Lisbon, Seville, Barcelona, Arles, Genoa, Venice and Ragusa (Dubrovnik) in the Mediterranean, as well as Istanbul and Rostov-on-Don, all except the latter surmounted by flags. Upper and lower margins with two double-fillet borders sandwiching three scale bars and a thick and twin-dotted lines in brown ink, rhumb lines in green, red and brown, terminating in 6 wind roses (some staining in northern area mainly affecting Scandinavia and the Baltic Sea, 60mm tear to Russian Black Sea coastline repaired with only minor loss, 12 very small wormholes to eastern end of map only affecting western tip of Crimea, 5 place names on Turkey’s southern coast, and one compass rose, northern border slightly trimmed at western end, eastern edge cut (as per 1565 chart in Vienna), Virgin and Child and wind rose in Atlantic rubbed, 2 ?hanging holes in neck just above Virgin and Child, minor cockling, rubbing and soiling, this latter heavy on verso at western end).
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