Παράξενοι Χάρτες

[LuX]

Beatus (c. 730 - 798) was a Spanish monk and theologian. He corresponded with Alcuin, and took part in the Adoptionist controversy, criticizing the views of Felix of Urgel and Elipandus of Toledo. He is best remembered today as the author of his Commentary on the Apocalypse, published in 776. The Commentary also contained one of the oldest Christian world maps. Although the original manuscript and map has not survived, copies of the map survives in several of the extant manuscripts.



Andrea Bianco's atlas of 1436 comprises ten leaves of vellum, measuring 29 X 38 cm., in an 18th century binding. The first leave contains a description of the Rule of Marteloio for resolving the course, with the "circle and square", two tables and two other diagrams. The next eight leaves contain various navigation charts. The ninth leave contains a circular world map measuring 25 cm in circumference. And the final leave contains the Ptolemaic world map on Ptolemy's first projection, with graduation. Some believe Bianco's maps were the first to correctly portray the coast of Florida, as a macro-peninsula is attached to a large island labeled Antillia. Bianco also collaborated with Fra Mauro on the Fra Mauro world map of 1459.



The Cantino planisphere is the earliest surviving map showing Portuguese discoveries in the east and west. It is named after Alberto Cantino, an agent for the Duke of Ferrara, who successfully smuggled it from Portugal to Italy in 1502. The map is particularly notable for portraying a fragmentary record of the Brazilian coast, accidently discovered in 1500 by the Portuguese explorer Pedro Álvares Cabral (he correctly conjectured that he had landed on part of a continent previously unknown to Europeans)

Δ.