The Catalan Atlas is the pinnacle of the Catalan school of medieval cartography. Prepared in Palma de Mallorca around 1375 by the Jew Abraham Cresquez with his son Yehuda (who later worked under the patronage of Henry the Navigator) commissioned by King Juan I of Aragon. The last four sheets of the atlas are an expanded portolan map with information about overseas countries according to Marco Polo and John Mandeville. The North, according to the Arab tradition, is from below.
The Atlas originally consisted of six large wooden panels, which were covered on one side with parchment. Then the Atlas was transformed into a book, in which each parchment forms a spread. This led to folds in the parchment sheets and therefore they were divided into 12 half sheets stretched over a wooden frame. The first four pages deal with issues of cosmography and navigation, describe the concept of the world, show astronomical and astrological concepts and provide information about the calendar, the Sun, the Moon, planets, signs of the zodiac and tides. The remaining eight half-sheets form the map itself. Each sheet measures 69 x 49 cm. These proportions are of some importance, for they undoubtedly limit the cartographer in his portrayal of the northern and southern regions.
Sources of information of the Catalan Atlas can be divided into three groups into three groups: elements obtained from previous medieval circular maps of the world, the contours of the Black Sea, Mediterranean Sea and the coast of Western Europe, based on Portolans, and data taken from the stories of travelers on the 13th and 14th. th century.
The main instrument for advancing research in Western Europe during the late Middle Ages was the use of nautical charts or portolans. Mariners used to have to rely on written routes or local pilots. After the appearance of the compass in Europe at the end of the 13th century, sailors began to use portolans on which loxodromes were applied, that is, lines with a constant angle to the magnetic north, which made it possible to continue moving in cloudy weather. (Loxodromes are navigation curves that intersect all meridians at a constant angle, number 32 or 16 - they correspond to compass points and are used by mariners to link to real navigation paths).
The atlas is a transitional version of a map developed later in the Renaissance.
Cresques included in the map everything that was then known about Asia, based mainly on the narrative of Marco Polo. For the first time in medieval cartography, recognizable forms appear on this continent. The continental outline is filled with details and decorative images. From Mar del Sarra [Caspian Sea] to the east, Mongolian areas are shown in detail extending to Catayo [China].
From west to east, the main Mongol territories include the Sarra [Golden Horde] Empire, the Medeia [Chagtai Khanate], and Catayo [China]. Its capital - Beijing, the city of the great khan, is described in detail based on the story of Marco Polo.
“This city [Beijing] is 24 km long, surrounded by a very thick outer wall and is a square. Each side is six miles long, the wall is 20 paces high, has 12 gates and a large tower on which hangs a large bell that rings at sunset. After the bell is struck, no one can enter the city, and at each gate a thousand people stand guard, and not out of fear, but in honor of the sovereign."
Promotional video:
India is represented on the Catalan Atlas by the Sultanate of Delhi and the Hindu king Vijayanagara, who is mistakenly identified as a Christian. Further north, a camel caravan is shown - a reference to the Silk Road, the overland route to China - a journey through the Xinjiang Desert through the Tarim Basin.
The presence of Christian rulers in the eastern part of the Islamic world is largely associated with the legend of Presbyter John, also takes into account the presence of the Christian minority in India and the fact that the tomb of Saint Thomas was believed to be on the outskirts of Madras.
Above, "upside down", is shown a curious scene of the burning of an old man, accompanied by music: "Know that the men and women of this region, when they are dead, are burned, to the sound of instruments, in rapture and joy … And sometimes it happens, although rarely, that the widow of the slain is thrown into the fire”- the practice of burning the widow (sutti) - from the stories of Marco Polo.
The Persian Gulf extends almost to the west. There are names on the southern coast of Arabia that differ from those mentioned by Polo, and in one of them, Adramant, modern Hadhramaut can be recognized.
The map shows the many rivers flowing into the Caspian, and the overland route from Urganj [medieval Khiva] through Bukhara and Samarkand to the eastern borders of Persia. In the mountains of Badakhshan, where the route crosses the Pamirs, in the east lies Lake Issyk Kul.
This was, in general terms, the route of Matteo and Niccolo Polo to the Great Khan. In addition, traces of the second journey accompanied by Marko along the Great Silk Road can be discerned. Astrakhan, Volga Bulgaria, Bashkir territories east of the middle Volga and Sebur or Siberia are marked on the map.
Those. it can be concluded that the depiction of Asia differs from the information of Marco Polo in detail, but has much in common in basic terms.
Cosmography.
The calendar.
Western Europe.
Eastern Europe.
Western Asia.
East Asia.