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Description
ff. 8. Latin. Four maps: 1, Europe and Mediterranean area; 2, Asia from eastern Mediterranean to China; 3, Africa and Arabia; 4, North and South America. Title supplied by cataloger. World atlas containing 4 nautical charts. On the first map, the inscription, ". . . Me fecit fra matheo de Chiara de arimino anno domine [sic] M D. xix.". Almost certainly a forgery, as is HM 218. It cannot be of the date inscribed since the west coast of North America and entire northwestern section of South America could not have been known until much later. The handwriting appears to be of nineteenth or early twentieth century origin. Parchment seems old; there are worm holes, but none that penetrated from one surface to the next, making it appear that the holes were present before the atlas was assemble; blank back sides are heavily scratched Support: Parchment. Layout: Bifolia arranged sequentially. Triple ruled borders in black and red ink. Span folios: ff. 1-8v. Other Decoration: Nomenclature in black ink for ports, red ink for countries, and in red overlaid with gold for larger areas in an imitative gothic script; land masses outlined in black ink overtraced with ocher; each chart has one compass rose with symbols for the wind directions, but rhumb lines do not radiate from the compass roses; rhumb lines in black, red and green ink but often the 32 line pattern is incomplete; no latitude or longitude; no scales of distance; first chart has a circular painting in each of the top corners, other charts are decorated with occasional vignettes of ships, mountains, and rivers. Assigned Date: s. XIX? Input into Digital Scriptorium by: C. W. Dutschke, 1/13/2012. Cataloged from existing description: C. W. Dutschke with the assistance of R. H. Rouse et al., Guide to Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in the Huntington Library (San Marino, 1989). Bound, s. XVIII, in Italian vellum wrapper with remains of ties. HM 217. Huntington Library, San Marino, CA.
Purchased by Henry Huntington in 1925 from Weymer Mills, London, who stated in a lettre preserved in Library files that the manuscripts [HM 217 and HM 218] "have been in the possession of an English family for 500 years." No owners's marks.
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