The Chronicle of the Discovery and Conquest of Guinea. Vol. IIZurara, Gomes Eannes de
History
The Chronicle of the Discovery and Conquest of Guinea. Vol. II
Zurara, Gomes Eannes de
Guinea (Region) -- Discovery and exploration -- Early works to 1800
[Footnote 257: The Soleri of 1380 gives twenty Atlantic
islands; nineteen appear in the Soleri of 1385 (some
legendary). In neither is any addition made to earlier lists.]
(11) Next in order comes an anonymous Atlas of 1384 (?) in six sheets,
usually called, after two of its possessors, the Pinelli-Walckenaer
Portolano. It is probably a Genoese work. Its West Africa extends about
as far as (or a little beyond) the Soleri of 1385, to what is apparently
Cape Bojador, slightly south of the Canaries. Ten names occur beyond C.
Non, among them Cavo de Sablon and Enbucder.[258] The little harbour
existing to the south of Bojador seems indicated here.
[Footnote 258: Bojador?]
(12) And now, coming to the fifteenth century, we have first the
"Combitis" Portolan of _c._ 1410--an anonymous work, but inscribed "Haec
tabula ex testamento domini Nicolai de Combitis devenit in Monasterio
Cartusiae florentinae." This is, in some respects, closely similar to
the Vesconte of 1318.
(13) Another cartographer of the early fifteenth century is Cristoforo
Buondelmonte--otherwise Ensenius--whose "Description of the Cyclades" is
accompanied by maps; who was the author of an important graduated chart
of the North of Europe; and who also left a roughly-sketched
mappemonde--perhaps a copy of a much older work--which may conceivably
have been known to Prince Henry and have encouraged his explorations.
This shows an Africa somewhat similar in contour to Fra Mauro's of
1457-9, but almost without names.[259]
[Footnote 259: Reproduced in Nordenskjöld, _Periplus_, 111,
and labelled only "before 1481." The only name on the West
African mainland is well down S.W., "India [portus?] pbīs
fons." The deep indent on the middle of the W. African coast,
noticed in several other maps and even in Fra Mauro, appears
here on a great scale.]
(14) Last among these works of the "Preparatory Time," we may take an
anonymous Catalan planisphere of the early fifteenth century (in the
National Library of Florence) closely resembling the great Atlas of
1375.
This completes the list of important maps for the period immediately
preceding the new Portuguese discoveries, and shows us the most likely
examples of cartography for Prince Henry's study. Some of these he may
have owned; many of them he probably inspected in person or by deputy.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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