Details
PORTOLAN CHART - [Jacopo SCOTTI. Portolan chart of the Mediterranean and Northern Europe. Levanto or Genoa: Last quarter of the 16th Century].
A single vellum sheet 600 x 970mm (maximum dimensions including the neck), verso blank. The chart extending from Azores to the Holy Land, from Scandinavia and Iceland to the Nile, coastlines in gold, islands in green, red, gold and silver, rivers and lakes in sepia and grey, over 1,200 coastal place-names in red and sepia in a small neat gothic rotunda, 22 detailed town vignettes, heightened in gold and surmounted by flags, the principal kingdoms of Europe and North Africa decorated with 15 elaborate figures of Kings, North Africa with additional decoration in the form of camels, elephants and mountain ranges, 8 large and small compass roses each with gilt fleur-de-lys north points, the seas of the Atlantic decorated with 2 vignettes of spouting whales, 2 ships and a serpent-like sea monster, the neck of the chart with God the father looking down on a schematic circular map of the world, the whole chart divided by rhumblines extending from the compass roses, sepia and red-ruled borders. (Several small worm holes affecting lower border, several other rust holes, some abrasion of the gilt decoration particularly to the figures of the Kings and their accompanying texts, outer and inner margins shaved with slight loss, minor soiling, inscription of the chart-maker partially erased, originally laid down on paper, small sections of paper remaining on verso.)
AN ATTRACTIVE AND ACCOMPLISHED PORTOLAN CHART OF EUROPE BY JACOPO SCOTTI, indistinctly signed near the neck of the chart. Jacopo Scotti (Giacomo Scotto, Jacobus Scotus) was a chart maker from Levanto, Liguria (south east of Genoa) active in the last few decades of the 16th century. Nordenskiold's Periplus, Stockholm, 1897 lists only two charts and two atlases by this accomplished chart-maker; a chart of the Mediterranean of 1578 (? an ascribed date); another Mediterranean chart signed and dated 1589 in the Bibliotheca Marciana in Venice (also noted by Gustavo Uzielli and Pietro Amat di San Filippo Mappamondi, carte nautiche, portolani..dei secolo XIII-XVII, Rome 1882); a 9 map atlas in the Bibliotheca Capitolare, 1592; a 6 map atlas in the Bibliotheca municipale Magnani, Bologna. Uzieli op.cit. also records another 'carta nautica' in the Bibl. dell'Archiginnesio, Bologna dated 1593. A few other portolan charts signed by Scotti are known in private hands. This particular chart is very much in the 'Catalan' style of chart making incorporating as it does numerous decorative figures, townscapes surmounted by flags and elaborate 16-point compass roses. This decorative style which began in the 15th century, flourished in the mid to late 16th century particularly in Southern Spain, Majorca, Marseilles and Genoa. Individual chart-makers and families of chart-makers such as the Olives family, Matteo Prunes and Juan Martines adopted this style selling particularly to a rich mercantile clientele rather than for a ship's captain for use at sea. This example is particularly fine in its composition and draws inspiration from early charts in his use of a circular world map to decorate the neck of the chart. Normally, in the catalan tradition, a cross or the figure of the Virgin would be employed. The enhanced size of the birds-eye view of the city of Genoa suggests that the chart was drawn for a Genoan client, indeed it is possible that at this time Scotti was active in Genoa rather than in the smaller port of Levanto.
A single vellum sheet 600 x 970mm (maximum dimensions including the neck), verso blank. The chart extending from Azores to the Holy Land, from Scandinavia and Iceland to the Nile, coastlines in gold, islands in green, red, gold and silver, rivers and lakes in sepia and grey, over 1,200 coastal place-names in red and sepia in a small neat gothic rotunda, 22 detailed town vignettes, heightened in gold and surmounted by flags, the principal kingdoms of Europe and North Africa decorated with 15 elaborate figures of Kings, North Africa with additional decoration in the form of camels, elephants and mountain ranges, 8 large and small compass roses each with gilt fleur-de-lys north points, the seas of the Atlantic decorated with 2 vignettes of spouting whales, 2 ships and a serpent-like sea monster, the neck of the chart with God the father looking down on a schematic circular map of the world, the whole chart divided by rhumblines extending from the compass roses, sepia and red-ruled borders. (Several small worm holes affecting lower border, several other rust holes, some abrasion of the gilt decoration particularly to the figures of the Kings and their accompanying texts, outer and inner margins shaved with slight loss, minor soiling, inscription of the chart-maker partially erased, originally laid down on paper, small sections of paper remaining on verso.)
AN ATTRACTIVE AND ACCOMPLISHED PORTOLAN CHART OF EUROPE BY JACOPO SCOTTI, indistinctly signed near the neck of the chart. Jacopo Scotti (Giacomo Scotto, Jacobus Scotus) was a chart maker from Levanto, Liguria (south east of Genoa) active in the last few decades of the 16th century. Nordenskiold's Periplus, Stockholm, 1897 lists only two charts and two atlases by this accomplished chart-maker; a chart of the Mediterranean of 1578 (? an ascribed date); another Mediterranean chart signed and dated 1589 in the Bibliotheca Marciana in Venice (also noted by Gustavo Uzielli and Pietro Amat di San Filippo Mappamondi, carte nautiche, portolani..dei secolo XIII-XVII, Rome 1882); a 9 map atlas in the Bibliotheca Capitolare, 1592; a 6 map atlas in the Bibliotheca municipale Magnani, Bologna. Uzieli op.cit. also records another 'carta nautica' in the Bibl. dell'Archiginnesio, Bologna dated 1593. A few other portolan charts signed by Scotti are known in private hands. This particular chart is very much in the 'Catalan' style of chart making incorporating as it does numerous decorative figures, townscapes surmounted by flags and elaborate 16-point compass roses. This decorative style which began in the 15th century, flourished in the mid to late 16th century particularly in Southern Spain, Majorca, Marseilles and Genoa. Individual chart-makers and families of chart-makers such as the Olives family, Matteo Prunes and Juan Martines adopted this style selling particularly to a rich mercantile clientele rather than for a ship's captain for use at sea. This example is particularly fine in its composition and draws inspiration from early charts in his use of a circular world map to decorate the neck of the chart. Normally, in the catalan tradition, a cross or the figure of the Virgin would be employed. The enhanced size of the birds-eye view of the city of Genoa suggests that the chart was drawn for a Genoan client, indeed it is possible that at this time Scotti was active in Genoa rather than in the smaller port of Levanto.