Significant post-publication additions and corrections to the portolan chart pages

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Significant post-publication
additions & corrections

to the

Portolan Chart pages

All textual alterations of any substance, since publication on 7 March 2011, are signalled as such by a note between { }
This page lists those that might be considered to have more significance

Being worked on:

How did the coastal outlines on the portolan charts of the Mediterranean and Black Sea find their way into world maps, and what were the implications of that? [A long essay in preparatoon - see the note under 2023.]

Possibilities for later:

analysis of the Maghreb chart

double-circle networks: the point of tangency problem

further search for incidences of 'mnemonic island shapes' in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans and further east, in response to 16th-century discoveries. It is likely that this will lead to additions to the existing section, Island shapes as a mnemonic device

2026

The rediscovered Helsingør Atlas: a miniature, inscrutable maverick among 15th-century portolan charts (13 July 2026)
Publication was much delayed for personal and technical reasons.

2023

'The crucial factors that explain the portolan charts’ endurance' - a 'Postscript' to Mediterranean portolan charts: their origin in the mental maps of medieval sailors, their function and their early development (27 August 2023).
‘How did the coastal outlines on the portolan charts of the Mediterranean and Black Sea find their way into world maps? And why did it take three centuries?’.
A YouTube video of a talk to the IVth International Workshop: ‘On the Origin and Evolution of the Nautical Chart’, Lisbon, 26 May 2023 (Session 5, part 1). [This is effectively a synopsis of a longer forthcoming essay.]

2021

Index to selected topics covered in the portolan chart pages (a Microsoft Word table) Added 30 August
Mediterranean portolan charts: their origin in the mental maps of medieval sailors, their function and their early development. Added 26 January
A lengthy essay on the origin of the portolan charts arguing that they derived from pre-existing 'mental' maps of the Mediterranean and Black seas carried in the heads of pelagic mariners, along with a mental wind compass to supply directions.

2020

‘The Representation of Navigational Hazards: the Development of Toponymy and Symbology on Portolan Charts from the 13th Century onwards’ (by Tony Campbell & Captain Michael Barritt RN., The Journal of the Hakluyt Society, December 2020)

'A slight re-dating of the Carte Pisane' [see Updates at the head of the page]. In place of the recent consensus date of c.1280, it is more appropriate to move it back to c.1270, because of new evidence concerning the foundation of Palamós. (16 September 2020)

Both added on 15 September 2020

The Charta Rogeriana: a reappraisal of the making of al-Idrīsī's world map of 1154 and its dissemination

The mental wind compass of the medieval Mediterranean: the rediscovery of its structure and interpretations of its use (including a section authored by Roel Nicolai)

2016

Mediterranean France on the general Listing and analysis of portolan chart toponyms along the continuous coastline from Dunkirk to Mogador (early 14th to late 17th century) including the transcribed names from the 'Liber de existencia riveriarum' and 'Lo compasso de navegare' as well as the Carte Pisane and Cortona chart.
From Port Vendres to Menton (Nos 400-457) many changes were made, affecting the number order and comments, but particularly the modern identifications, on the basis of information kindly supplied by Jacques Mille. See the 'Reference' page for his 2016 publication. This includes detailed explanations and also lists the offshore features that are omitted from this listing (December 2016)
Cartographic innovations by the early portolan chartmakers (and subsequent developments)

2015

'A detailed reassessment of the Carte Pisane: a late and inferior copy, or the lone survivor from the portolan charts' formative period?'

coupled with

A further iteration of the Excel Listing and analysis of portolan chart toponyms along the continuous coastline from Dunkirk to Mogador (early 14th to late 17th century) including the transcribed names from the 'Liber de existencia riveriarum' and 'Lo compasso de navegare' as well as the Carte Pisane and Cortona chart.

Now extended to about 3,000 names (with extensive revisions, important additions, and incorporating a sequence of new columns to aid searching and analysis), this also identifies the incidences of names found on the Lucca and Riccardiana charts, as well as references to further authorities

2013

Revisions to the A complete chronological listing of portolan charts assigned to the period pre-1501 (with its six pre-sorted sequences accessible via the tabs at the bottom) [October 2013]
Corrections and additions to the portolan chart pages, with an update note beside those of any significance [October 2013]
A note on a previously unknown 15th-century chart fragment, featuring the Caspian Sea. This was described for a Sotheby's auction but withdrawn before sale [October 2013]

Another major section on Toponymy, including a new general listing and a section on Red Names, comprising three webpages and over 20 tables & graphs, was added on 6 September 2013:

Listing and analysis of portolan chart toponyms along the continuous coastline from Dunkirk to Mogador (early 14th to late 17th century) including the transcribed names from the 'Liber de existencia riveriarum' and 'Lo compasso de navegare' as well as the Carte Pisane and Cortona chart (an Excel spreadsheet).
This supersedes (for most purposes) the 'Table of Significant Names', published in January 2012: http://www.maphistory.info/SigNamesFullTable.doc. To the original 1,800 'Significant Names' have now been added about a thousand more toponyms - mostly intermittent, rare or even unique.

Red Names Menu

Summary Table of Red names (633 were identified in the first systematic analysis of this feature, ranging from 1313 to the late 17th century)

Commentary on the Red Names analysis (an essay, with a 'Conclusions' section. This notes, for example, that 60% were added after 1313, that more red names were unique to single practitioners than the total found regularly throughout the study's three centuries, and that 17% of the added names appear in that way from the outset)

2012

A major section on Toponymy, comprising three webpages and over 35 tables & graphs, was added on 18 February 2012:

Toponymy Main Menu

Innovative Portolan Chart Names (an extended essay)

Abandoned Portolan Chart Names (a note, with tables & graphs)

The Methodology behind the Table of 'Significant Names' and its analysis

Some areas for possible future research into Portolan Chart history [Expanded - 11 February 2012]

General Conclusions [Expanded - 11 February 2012]

The dating of British Library Add. 27376* [New - 11 February 2012]

Securely dated post-1469 charts used for the transcription or selective checking of the place-names between Dunkirk and Mogador (a Microsoft Word table) [Updated - 8 February 2012]

Securely dated post-1469 charts (online scans) [Revised - 7 February 2012]

Table of 'Significant Names'- those that first appear on portolan charts after 1311 (and are repeated regularly thereafter) or those that disappear before 1600 (a Microsoft Word table) [Extensive revision completed - 22 January 2012]

2011

Toponymy (on the number of lines a scribe could produce each day) [New - 28 April 2011]
Andrea Bianco's "London" chart of 1448 [New - 28 April 2011]
A deeper understanding of the function of portolan charts (a central paragraph commenting on the placement of the toponyms) [New - 25 April 2011]
Survival and lost charts (a final paragraph noting a survival rate of c.1% for Dutch East India Company charts from the 17th and 18th centuries) [New - 25 April 2011]

Significant post-publication additions & corrections

Portolan Chart pages

Significant post-publication
additions & corrections