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Important Cartography from the Niewodniczanski Collection
RUSSO, Jacobo (fl.1520-1588)
[Portolan Chart of the Mediterranean.] Messina: 1588, signed ‘Jacobus Russus me fecit in nobili civitate Messane Anno D[omi]ni 1588’.
Details
RUSSO, Jacobo (fl.1520-1588)
[Portolan Chart of the Mediterranean.] Messina: 1588, signed ‘Jacobus Russus me fecit in nobili civitate Messane Anno D[omi]ni 1588’.
A richly decorated and highly accomplished manuscript portolan chart of Europe, centred on the Mediterranean, but extending from Ireland to Ethiopia, and from the Azores to Crimea. Hand drawn by expert cartographers with great knowledge of the sea, portolan sea charts sprang unheralded into being in the 13th century – no precursors can now be traced – and were a primary maritime navigational aid until the 18th century, when large-format printed sea charts became feasible. Portolan charts do not utilize lines of latitude and longitude, but instead are crisscrossed 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. Portolan charts are generally devoid of inland information, but the coastlines are filled with place names written perpendicular to the coastline so as not to obscure the coastal detail.
The blank inland areas presented opportunities for the enterprising 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.
Long before the famous Oliva family of portolan chart makers settled there, the Russo family, first Pietro and then Jacobo (probably father and son) were making such charts in the Sicilian city of Messina. The earliest known portolan chart by Pietro Russo is dated 1508 (Barcelona Maritime Museum), and the first by Jacobo Russo is dated 1520 (State Archives of Florence). Pflederer’s census records two of Russo’s charts dated 1588, but the present lot appears to represent a hitherto unrecorded third. In total, Pflederer associates Jacobo’s name with 19 portolan items: one atlas from 1521 and 18 charts from the 1520s up to 1588. It used to be thought there must have been two namesakes to explain works bearing the name Jacobo Russo spanning more than 60 years, but Astengo believes collaboration in workshops, and the addition of signatures by apprentices, may well explain the long working lives of these cartographers (p.191). Astengo further points out that it is an inscription on a Russo chart of 1563 that demonstrates the differentiation between the intellectual task of cartography (fecit) and the manual one (composta) (pp.189-190).
Chet van Duzer has suggested that some portolan cartographers, including Vesconte Maggiolo (c.1475-1551) of Genoa, produced such charts using hand-stamps for the decorations: the hand-stamps generated the outlines, which were then painted in colours. This provided efficiencies in time and money, and would make it easier for a copyist to produce such a chart. The hitherto overlooked use of print technology in the production of what are ostensibly manuscript charts invites many opportunities for exciting new research.
Not in Pflederer Census of Portolan Charts and Atlases; M.C. Andrews. ‘The boundary between Scotland and England in the Portolan Charts’ in Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, (1926) 60, 36–66; C. Astengo. ‘The Renaissance Chart Tradition in the Mediterranean’ in The History of Cartography, Volume 3, Part 1 (2007), pp.174-262; T. Campbell. ‘Portolan Charts from the Late Thirteenth Century to 1500’ in The History of Cartography, Volume 1 (1987), pp.371-463; Chet Van Duzer. ‘Print in a Manuscript Realm: The Use of Hand-Stamps in the Decoration of Renaissance Nautical Charts,’ delivered 1 August 2019, in the Rare Book and Special Collections Division, Library of Congress, Washington DC, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gs58IA5IIWA
Manuscript portolan chart, gold, ink and colours on vellum sheet, maximum dimensions 680 x 1090mm, including neck into which the rhumb lines extend, verso blank, the chart extending from Mauritania to the Sea of Azov and from Ireland to the Red Sea, coastlines mainly in brown excepting those of England, the Crimea, Sicily and the Peloponnese which are in green, islands in red, blue, sepia, green and gold, rivers in blue, place-names written in red and sepia, 36 vignettes of towns and cities all surmounted by flags, 11 elaborate figures of monarchs, of which those in Europe shown seated on thrones, the 3 kings of Tartary, north Africa and the Ottoman Emperor on more simple chairs, while the 3 monarchs to the south of the Atlas Mountains are depicted within tents, prelate wearing mitre and carrying a cross to extreme south-east signifying Christian Ethiopia, the Atlas Mountains dramatically highlighted in green, with decoration of camels and elephants to their south, the Red Sea hachured in red, the kingdoms of England, Scotland and Ireland with blue and gold crowned crests, the boundary between Scotland and England represented by a canal, large compass rose in Atlantic Ocean adjacent to the Azores with Virgin and Child at centre, and 4 other compass roses each with gilt fleur-de-lys north points, mythical island of Brazil shown to south-west of Ireland, signed at extreme north-west in Atlantic Ocean, northern and southern extremities with scale bars enclosed by a simple decorative border of a brown frame with pink and green joints. Provenance: Tomasz Niewodniczanski (acquired in 1988; exhibited October 2004-January 2005 at City Hall, Gdansk, in Dantiscum Emporium Totius Europae Celeberrimum).
[Portolan Chart of the Mediterranean.] Messina: 1588, signed ‘Jacobus Russus me fecit in nobili civitate Messane Anno D[omi]ni 1588’.
A richly decorated and highly accomplished manuscript portolan chart of Europe, centred on the Mediterranean, but extending from Ireland to Ethiopia, and from the Azores to Crimea. Hand drawn by expert cartographers with great knowledge of the sea, portolan sea charts sprang unheralded into being in the 13th century – no precursors can now be traced – and were a primary maritime navigational aid until the 18th century, when large-format printed sea charts became feasible. Portolan charts do not utilize lines of latitude and longitude, but instead are crisscrossed 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. Portolan charts are generally devoid of inland information, but the coastlines are filled with place names written perpendicular to the coastline so as not to obscure the coastal detail.
The blank inland areas presented opportunities for the enterprising 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.
Long before the famous Oliva family of portolan chart makers settled there, the Russo family, first Pietro and then Jacobo (probably father and son) were making such charts in the Sicilian city of Messina. The earliest known portolan chart by Pietro Russo is dated 1508 (Barcelona Maritime Museum), and the first by Jacobo Russo is dated 1520 (State Archives of Florence). Pflederer’s census records two of Russo’s charts dated 1588, but the present lot appears to represent a hitherto unrecorded third. In total, Pflederer associates Jacobo’s name with 19 portolan items: one atlas from 1521 and 18 charts from the 1520s up to 1588. It used to be thought there must have been two namesakes to explain works bearing the name Jacobo Russo spanning more than 60 years, but Astengo believes collaboration in workshops, and the addition of signatures by apprentices, may well explain the long working lives of these cartographers (p.191). Astengo further points out that it is an inscription on a Russo chart of 1563 that demonstrates the differentiation between the intellectual task of cartography (fecit) and the manual one (composta) (pp.189-190).
Chet van Duzer has suggested that some portolan cartographers, including Vesconte Maggiolo (c.1475-1551) of Genoa, produced such charts using hand-stamps for the decorations: the hand-stamps generated the outlines, which were then painted in colours. This provided efficiencies in time and money, and would make it easier for a copyist to produce such a chart. The hitherto overlooked use of print technology in the production of what are ostensibly manuscript charts invites many opportunities for exciting new research.
Not in Pflederer Census of Portolan Charts and Atlases; M.C. Andrews. ‘The boundary between Scotland and England in the Portolan Charts’ in Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, (1926) 60, 36–66; C. Astengo. ‘The Renaissance Chart Tradition in the Mediterranean’ in The History of Cartography, Volume 3, Part 1 (2007), pp.174-262; T. Campbell. ‘Portolan Charts from the Late Thirteenth Century to 1500’ in The History of Cartography, Volume 1 (1987), pp.371-463; Chet Van Duzer. ‘Print in a Manuscript Realm: The Use of Hand-Stamps in the Decoration of Renaissance Nautical Charts,’ delivered 1 August 2019, in the Rare Book and Special Collections Division, Library of Congress, Washington DC, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gs58IA5IIWA
Manuscript portolan chart, gold, ink and colours on vellum sheet, maximum dimensions 680 x 1090mm, including neck into which the rhumb lines extend, verso blank, the chart extending from Mauritania to the Sea of Azov and from Ireland to the Red Sea, coastlines mainly in brown excepting those of England, the Crimea, Sicily and the Peloponnese which are in green, islands in red, blue, sepia, green and gold, rivers in blue, place-names written in red and sepia, 36 vignettes of towns and cities all surmounted by flags, 11 elaborate figures of monarchs, of which those in Europe shown seated on thrones, the 3 kings of Tartary, north Africa and the Ottoman Emperor on more simple chairs, while the 3 monarchs to the south of the Atlas Mountains are depicted within tents, prelate wearing mitre and carrying a cross to extreme south-east signifying Christian Ethiopia, the Atlas Mountains dramatically highlighted in green, with decoration of camels and elephants to their south, the Red Sea hachured in red, the kingdoms of England, Scotland and Ireland with blue and gold crowned crests, the boundary between Scotland and England represented by a canal, large compass rose in Atlantic Ocean adjacent to the Azores with Virgin and Child at centre, and 4 other compass roses each with gilt fleur-de-lys north points, mythical island of Brazil shown to south-west of Ireland, signed at extreme north-west in Atlantic Ocean, northern and southern extremities with scale bars enclosed by a simple decorative border of a brown frame with pink and green joints. Provenance: Tomasz Niewodniczanski (acquired in 1988; exhibited October 2004-January 2005 at City Hall, Gdansk, in Dantiscum Emporium Totius Europae Celeberrimum).
Brought to you by
Eugenio Donadoni
Senior Specialist, Medieval & Renaissance Manuscripts