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| Carta Pisana | |
|---|---|
| Name | Carta Pisana |
| Type | Portolan chart |
| Date | c. late 13th century |
| Place | Pisa |
| Material | Parchment |
| Size | 57 × 75 cm |
| Current location | Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris |
Carta Pisana is a late thirteenth-century portolan chart traditionally associated with Pisa and exemplary of medieval Mediterranean nautical cartography. The chart is notable for its detailed depiction of the Mediterranean Sea, the Black Sea, and portions of the Atlantic Ocean, and for its early use of rhumb lines centered on a network of compass roses. It has been central to debates about the origins of navigational mapping in Genoa, Venice, Majorca, and other maritime powers such as Aragon and Catalonia.
The artifact is a large single-sheet parchment measuring approximately 57 × 75 cm, executed in ink and color by an anonymous hand associated with Mediterranean chartmaking centres like Pisa, Genoa, Venice, Barcelona, and Palma de Mallorca. Its marginalia, coastal outlines, and place-name script show affinities with chart traditions practiced in Catalonia, Provence, Liguria, Sicily, and Tuscany. Decoration includes compass roses, rhumb-line networks, and painted heads for islands and capes reminiscent of work produced for patrons in Aragon and Castile. The medium and pigment choices suggest links with workshops that supplied maritime republics such as Genoa and Pisa for voyages to Alexandria, Antioch, and Acre.
Scholars date the chart to the late 13th century, often c. 1275–1300, based on paleographic comparison with documents from Pisa Cathedral, Genoa Cathedral, and archival material from Barcelona and Palma de Mallorca. Proposed origins include Pisa, Genoa, Venice, and Majorca; proponents cite links to cartographers active in the aftermath of events like the Fourth Crusade, the Sicilian Vespers, and maritime expansions under James I of Aragon. Attribution is anonymous; suggestions of individual hands draw on comparisons with charts ascribed to named makers such as Angelino Dulcert, Pedro Reinel, and later figures like Abraão Cresques and the Majorcan cartographic school.
The chart employs a rhumb-line network radiating from multiple compass roses, consistent with the practical planar conventions used by Mediterranean mariners from Genoa and Venice and later codified by the Majorcan school. Its depiction lacks systematic latitude and longitude graticules used by later cartographers like Claudius Ptolemy or Mercator, yet shows empirical coastal triangulation noted in logs from Marco Polo-era voyagers and reports to courts including Pisa and Barcelona. The coastline treatment reflects soundings and bearings comparable to Genoese pilot manuals and reflects navigational practice contemporary with voyages to Constantinople, Cagliari, and Palermo.
Coverage centers on the Mediterranean Sea with extensions into the Atlantic Ocean as far as Gulf of Lyons and the Canary Islands peripheries, and the Black Sea including ports like Constantinople, Trebizond, and Sinope. Place-name density is high along coasts of Iberia, Provence, Tuscany, Sicily, Dalmatia, and Cyprus. Toponyms reflect vernacular and administrative forms attested in records from Pisa, Genoa, Barcelona, Venice, Naples, and Palermo, and show lexical parallels to lists in Portolan books and merchant ledgers from Catalan and Italian mercantile families.
The chart is pivotal for understanding transmission of nautical knowledge between maritime republics like Genoa, Venice, and Pisa and crown domains such as Aragon and Castile. It informed later innovations by the Majorcan cartographic school, cartographers like Angelino Dulcert and Abraham Cresques, and influenced navigational practice that underpinned expeditions by figures and polities including Prince Henry the Navigator, Portugal, and later Castile and Aragon. The artifact intersects with histories of Mediterranean commerce linking Venice with Alexandria, Tripoli, Ragusa, and Acre, and with military-logistical planning during conflicts such as the Crusades and the War of the Sicilian Vespers.
The chart entered collections in France and is now held in the manuscript collections of the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris. Its conservation history includes 19th-century cataloguing in Napoleonic-era inventories and later rehabilitations by conservators trained in techniques used at institutions such as the British Library, Vatican Library, and Archivio di Stato di Firenze. Scientific analyses have employed multispectral imaging and pigment analysis comparable to studies on charts in the holdings of Museo Galileo, Museo Correr, and the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze.
Debates focus on origin (Pisan versus Genoese versus Majorcan provenance), dating (late 13th century versus early 14th century), and the relationship between portolan practice and theoretical cartography exemplified by Ptolemy and later innovators like Gerardus Mercator. Comparative studies cite parallels with surviving charts attributed to Pietro Vesconte, Guglielmo de' Bianchi, Battista Beccario, and the corpus of the Majorcan cartographic school. Methodologies include paleography, toponymic mapping cross-referenced with notarial records from Pisa, Genoa, and Barcelona, and technical analyses similar to those applied to the Catalan Atlas and other medieval nautical charts. Ongoing scholarship engages institutions and scholars associated with École des Chartes, Institute of Historical Research, Università di Pisa, Universitat de Barcelona, and research projects funded by national bodies in France, Spain, and Italy.
Category:Medieval maps Category:Portolan charts Category:Maps held by the Bibliothèque nationale de France