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Description
ff. 40. [Fernão Vaz Dourado]. [Portolan atlas]. Latin. Contains 17 maps, etc.: 1, Southern South America; 2, Eastern South America from the Amazon to the La Plata River; 3, West Indies, Central America, part of Mexico, and southeastern United States; 4, Newfoundland and east coast of North America; 5, Scandinavia and northwestern Europe; 6, Eastern Mediterranean, Black Sea, and Caspian Sea; 7, Western Mediterranean, Europe, and northern Africa; 8, Northwestern Africa; 9, Southern Africa and Madagascar; 10, Indian Ocean (western part); 11, Eastern Africa, Arabia, and India; 12, Southeast China, Japan, East Indies (northern part); 13, East Indies; 14, East Indies (eastern part); 15, West coast of North America; 16, West coast of United States and Mexico; 17, West coast of South America from Ecuador to northern Chile; 18, Cosmographical data, as described in PMC, 3:15 and reproduced in pl. 276. Title from printed catalog. Support: Parchment. Layout: Bifolia attached sequentially with stubs. Wide borders decorated with floral designs and legends. Other Decoration: Black and red ink for nomenclature in a minuscule script with area names in square capitals and cosmographic data on f. 18 in round gothic hand; land masses outlined in color with islands painted gold, red, blue, or green; 1 to 3 elaborate compass roses on each chart with usual 32 rhumb line network in black, red, and green ink for the principal directions; numbered latitude scale on each chart but no longitude; each chart has a scale of distance in a large ornamental cartouche; charts are highly decorated with coats of arms, banners, rivers, etc. Produced ca. 1570, probably in Goa where the cartographer lived until 1571. Assigned Date: s. XVI3/4. Input into Digital Scriptorium by: C. W. Dutschke, 1/14/2012. 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, ca. 1680, in French brown morocco, gilt spine with lettering MAPA MVMDO (sic). HM 41. Huntington Library, San Marino, CA.
A. H. Huth sale catalogue, pt. VI, n. 5920 lists the manuscript as coming from the Library of the Archbishop of Toledo but Cortesão and Teixeira da Mota in PMC, 3:13-14 feel that this atlas was in the Biblioteca Nacional in Madrid until 1866 but disappeared after being taken to the Paris Exhibition in 1867. Sold in 1874 by Quaritch to Henry Huth (1815-78), whose ex libris is on front pastedown; The Huth Library (1880) pt. 4, 1172.
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