(4) Marino Sanudo the Elder, to his work, Liber Secretorum fidelium Crucis, written between 1306 and 1321, added an atlas of ten maps. Among these, i-v form an ordinary portolano, corresponding especially with Vesconte's work,[[248]] but giving us no special information upon Africa; while No. vi is the famous map of the world often reproduced. Here a thoroughly conventional Africa is laid down, of the "Strabonian" or "Macrobian" type: its length, from east to west, traversed by the Negro Nile from near the Mountains of the Moon to the Atlantic, is equal to fully twice the breadth from north to south. The deep inlet in the West African coast penetrating east to a "Regio vii Montium" immediately south of the Negro Nile, is a prototype of the similar feature in Fra Mauro, and is perhaps only an exaggeration of the Sinus Hesperius of Ptolemy. This map was probably known to Prince Henry, like the book it accompanied, which contained many important particulars of fourteenth-century trade and navigation. The Mappemonde is a compromise between, or combination of, the portolano and the Mediæval theoretical map, and is quite a landmark in the history of cartography.
(5) Pietro Vesconte of Genoa has left three or four works executed between 1311 and 1321, and still extant, viz.: (α) Of 1311, which lacks the Western Mediterranean and West Africa, what remains giving us a "normal portolano" of the Levant and Black Sea. (β) Of 1318, depicting the entire Mediterranean, etc., with the Atlantic, North Sea coasts of Europe (in ten plates), and West Africa as far as "Mogador." (γ) Of 1318 (in six maps), which for our purposes need not be discriminated from (β); and lastly (δ) Of 1320, a map of the world, with plans of cities, a special chart of Palestine, etc. The Mappemonde, which principally concerns us here, is extremely like Sanudo's, and is perhaps the work of the same artist—Vesconte himself. Another work, of 1321, by Vesconte, is mentioned in Santarem,[[249]] but its whereabouts is now unknown.
Once more a work of 1327, signed "Perrinus Vesconte fecit ... mcccxxvii in Veneciis" is conjectured to be only another "normal-portolan" by Pietro Vesconte.
(6) Angelino Dulcert, a Catalan, composed in August 1339, in Majorca ("in civitate Majoricarum") a portolan of great merit. Dulcert's Baltic somewhat resembles Carignano's, but with more numerous legends. A star ("the Star in the East") placed by this draughtsman south of the Caspian is copied, or at least paralleled, in the Atlas Catalan of 1375 (No. 9, p. cxxvi), in the Andrea Bianco of 1436, and in the Borgian map of 1430-50, as well as in the Anonymous Catalan planisphere hereafter noticed (No. 14, p. cxxviii). Dulcert's Africa probably served in some respects as a prototype for the Catalan Atlas of 1375, and Prince Henry may have studied the Continent in one or other of these delineations, which are among the most complete pictures of the Sahara coasts and Sudan interior coming down from any period before that of his voyages. Some of the Canaries are marked in about their right position, with Lançarote showing the Cross of Genoa, and Fuerteventura to the south, while almost in the latitude of Ceuta appear "Canaria," St. Brandan's Isle, etc. On the mainland a long stretch of shore-line is given beyond Cape Non or Nun, but it is drawn very conventionally in a S.S.E. direction, with seven names,[[250]] or titles, and an inscription of two lines, the whole seeming to show pretty clearly that the draughtsman knew nothing at first hand of the coast between Non and Boyador, but was led to conjecture a continuation of the Desert Littoral. In the Interior, the Atlas range, the large seated figure of a king with sceptre, and most of the towns depicted on eminences, reappear with slight alterations in the Atlas Catalan; which, however, adds many details.
(7) Next comes the most famous, and perhaps in some respects the most advanced, specimen of the early portolani: that usually quoted as the Medicean or Laurentian Portolan of 1351 ("Atlante Mediceo," or "Portolano Laurenziano-Gaddiano"). The author was anonymous, but almost certainly a Genoese, and his work consists of eight plates, or tables. The second of these is the Mappemonde, which is the only one that need be noticed here. The Africa of this map, taken as a whole, is drawn with a nearer approach to general correctness than on any chart anterior to the voyage of B. Diaz in 1486;[[251]] both the Guinea coast to the Camaroons, and the southern projection of the Continent, are extraordinarily well conceived for the time. No details or names are inserted on the W. African mainland shore beyond Cape Bojador and the River of Gold—"Palolus."[[252]] In this it is similar to the Pizigani map of 1367.[[253]]
(8) Francisco Pizigano, of Venice, 1367-1373, aided by his brother Marco, executed two famous works still extant: (α) In 1367, a large chart comprising a good deal beyond the normal portolano's Mediterranean and Black Sea;—e.g., part of the Scandinavian Peninsula, the Baltic, the Caspian, etc. It is signed, "mccclxvii, Hoc opus compoxuid Franciscus Pizigano Veneciar et domnus In Venexia meffecit Marcus die xii Decembris." (β) In 1373, a normal portolano, signed "mccclxxiii a die viii de zugno Francischo Pisigany Venician in Venexia me fecit." The N.W. Africa of these two maps shows no advance on the Laurentian Portolano.
(9) The Atlas Catalan of 1375 is said to have been executed for Charles V of France, in whose library it was entered with the title, "Une quarte de mer en tableaux faicte par manière de unes tables, painte et histoirée, figurée et escripte, et fermant a quatre fermoners de cuivre." It is in six plates, the last four of which compose a mappemonde—"the most comprehensive cartographic work of the fourteenth century," especially rich in legends, and showing us the normal portolan, for shore-lines, blended with the theoretical map, for the interiors of countries, all designed on the most elaborate scale. The West African coast on this example is brought down to, and a little beyond, Cape Bojador, southwest of which appear the Catalan explorers of 1346[[254]] in their boat, with an inscription.[[255]] Beginning with Arzilla, and continuing south, we have besides the recognisable Sallé, Cantin, Mogador, and No[n], 35 other names before we reach Cavo de Buyet(e)der, after which we have only the legend "Danom," and the conclusion, "Cap de Finister(r)a occidental de Affricha."[[256]] More attention is given to the interior of North Africa in this design than in any other map of the fourteenth century.
(10) Guglielmo Soleri, of Majorca, between c. 1380 and 1385, executed two designs of some value, both "normal-portolans:" (α) is undated, probably executed about 1380, and signed "Guill'mo Soleri civis Majoricarum me ficit." (β) is inscribed "Guillmus Solerii civis Majoricarum me fecit anno mccclxxxv."
In (β) West Africa has a fairly good extension, a little beyond the latitude of the Canaries, where the rough and torn southern edge of the map cuts across all.[[257]]
(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.