In the case of Japan, the earliest reference to a map is of 646, in which year the emperor ordered surveys of certain provinces to be made.
Portolano Maps.—During the long period of stagnation in cartography, which we have already dealt with, there survived among the seamen of the Mediterranean charts of remarkable accuracy, illustrating the Portolani or sailing directories in use among them. Charts of this description are first mentioned in connexion with the Crusade of Louis XI. in 1270, but they originated long before that time, and in the eastern part of the Mediterranean they embody materials available even in the days before Ptolemy, while the correct delineation of the west seems to be of a later date, and may have been due to Catalan seamen. These charts are based upon estimated bearings and distances between the principal ports or capes, the intervening coast-line being filled in from more detailed surveys. The bearings were dependent upon the seaman’s observation of the heavens, for these charts were in use long before the compass had been introduced on board ship (as early as 1205, according to Guiot de Provins) although it became fully serviceable only after the needle had been attached to the compass card, an improvement probably introduced by Flavio Gioja of Amalfi in the beginning of the 14th century. The compass may of course have been used for improving these charts, but they originated without its aid, and it is therefore misleading to describe them as Compass or Loxodromic charts, and they are now known as Portolano charts.
| Fig. 19.—The Eastern Mediterranean, by Petrus Vesconte (1311). |
| Fig. 20.—The Mediterranean. |
| a, According to A. Dulceti, 1339, and b, On Mercator’s projection, according to modern maps. |
None of these charts is graduated, and the horizontal and vertical lines which cross many of them represent neither parallels nor meridians. Their most characteristic feature, and one by which they can most readily be recognized, is presented by groups or systems of rhumb-lines, each group of these lines radiating from a common centre, the central group being generally encircled by eight or sixteen satellite groups. In the course of time the centres of radiation of all these groups had imposed upon them ornate rose dei venti, or windroses, such as may still be seen upon our compass-cards. Each chart was furnished with a scale of miles. These miles, however, were not the ordinary Roman miles of 1000 paces or 5000 ft., but smaller miles of Greek or Oriental origin, of which six were equal to five Roman miles, and as the latter were equal to 1480 metres, the Portolano miles had a length of only 1233 metres, and 75.2 of the former, and 90.3 of the latter were equal to a degree. The difference between these miles was known, however, only to the more learned among the map-makers, and when the charts were extended to the Atlantic seaboard the two were assumed to be identical.
| Fig. 21.—Map illustrating Marino Sanuto’s Liber secretorum fidelium crucis. |
On these old charts the Mediterranean is delineated with surprising fidelity. The meridian distance between the Straits of Gibraltar and Beirut in Syria amounts upon them to about 3000 Portolano miles, equal in lat. 36° N. to 40.9°, as compared with an actual difference of 41.2°, and a difference of 61° assumed by Ptolemy. There exists, however, a serious error of orientation, due, according to Professor H. Wagner, to the inexperience of the cartographers who first combined the charts of the separate basins of the Mediterranean so as to produce a chart of the whole. This accounts for Gibraltar and Alexandria being shown as lying due east and west of each other, although there is a difference of 5° of latitude between them, a fact known long before Ptolemy.
The production of these charts employed numerous licensed draughtsmen in the principal seaports of Italy and Catalonia, and among seamen these MS. charts remained popular long after the productions of the printing-press had become available. The oldest of these maps which have been preserved, the so-called “Pisan chart,” which belongs probably to the middle of the 13th century, and a set of eight charts, known by the name of its former owner, the Cavaliere Tamar Luxoro, of somewhat later date, are both the work of Genoese artists. Among more eminent Genoese cartographers are Joannes da Carignano (d. 1344), Petrus Vesconte, who worked in 1311 and 1327, and is the draughtsman of the maps illustrating Marino Sanuto’s Liber secretorum fidelium crucis, which was to have roused Christendom to engage in another crusade (figs. 19 and 21) Battista Beccario (1426, 1435) and Bartolomeo Pareto (1455). Venice ranks next to Genoa as a centre of cartographic activity. Associated with it are Francesco Pizigano (1367-1373), Francesco de Cesanis (1421), Giacomo Giroldi (1422-1446), Andrea Bianco (1436-1448) Giovanni Leardo (1442-1452), Alvise Cadamosto, who was associated with the Portuguese explorers on the west coast of Africa (1454-1456) and whose Portolano was printed at Venice in 1490, and Fra Mauro (1457).
Associated with Ancona are Grazioso Benincasa and his son Andreas, whose numerous charts were produced between 1461 and 1508, and Count Ortomano Freducci (1497-1538).