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Abstract
In his Cronica universalis Galvaneus Flamma refers to two cartographic artifacts. The first is a diagram of the winds placed within a cosmological frame, which lists the names of the winds in accordance with both “scientific” tradition and seafaring experience; this diagram intertwines two sources of knowledge, as would be expected in a scholarly milieu receptive to the suggestion of geographical practice. The other is a mappa Ianuensis, i.e. a map drawn in Genoa or kept in Genoa at the time, which Galvaneus mentions three times in his work; according to Galvaneus’s mentions, this map depicted the entire globe, and was much more extensive than a portolan chart. Both elements bring new light about the author’s geographical interests and sources, and add some small tiles to the mosaic of fourteenth-century cartography.
Dans sa Cronica universalis Galvaneus Flamma fait référence à deux objets cartographiques. Le premier est un diagramme des vents mis dans un cadre cosmologique qui montre une liste des noms des vents en même temps selon la tradition « scientifique » et la pratique marine; ce diagramme entrelace deux sources de savoir, comme à quoi on pourrait s'y attendre dans un milieu érudit ouvert à la suggestion de l'experiénce géographique. L’autre objets est une mappa Ianuensis, c’est-à-dire une carte dessinée à Gênes ou conservée à Gênes à cette époque, mentionnée par Galvaneus trois fois dans son œuvre; selon ces mentions, cette carte montrait le monde entier, et elle était beaucoup plus étendue qu’une carte-portulan. Les deux éléments éclairent les intérêts et sources géographiques de l’auteur, et ajoutent quelques petits carreaux à la mosaïque de la cartographie du XIVème siècle.
En su Cronica universalis, Galvano Flamma menciona dos objetos cartográficos. El primero es un diagrama de los vientos colocado dentro de un marco cosmológico, que enumera los nombres de los vientos siguiendo tanto la tradición “científica” como la experiencia marinera; este diagrama entrelaza dos fuentes de conocimiento, como sería de esperar en un entorno académico receptivo a la sugerencia de la práctica geográfica. El otro objeto es un mappa Ianuensis, es decir, un mapa dibujado en Génova o conservado en Génova por aquel entonces, que Galvano cita tres veces en su obra; según Galvano, este mapa mostraba todo el globo terrestre y era mucho más extenso que una carta portulana. Ambos elementos aportan nueva luz sobre los intereses geográficos y las fuentes del autor, y añaden unas pequeñas teselas al mosaico de la cartografía del siglo XIV.
Acknowledgments
I am grateful to Angelo Cattaneo, Patrick Gautier Dalché and Riccardo Macchioro for their advice and suggestions. Special thanks to Ramon Pujades i Bataller, who provided the drafts of his forthcoming book in which he makes a comprehensive review of “portolan mappamundi” (and deals, among others, with the “Catalan Estense mappa mundi” and the “Usodimare mappa mundi”) and their history. Obviously, I am responsible for any errors made.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 The diagram is mentioned in passing in the catalog of the auction where the manuscript was sold in 1998: Western Manuscripts and Miniatures (London, 1 December 1998) (London: Sotheby’s, 1998), pp. 73–5.
2 The naming of the winds was not unambiguous in the scientific tradition; this may explain certain anomalies in the diagram. For the WSW wind, for example, Galvaneus’s diagram depicts both affricus and zefirus; according to Isidore (Etym. III 11, 23), the former represented the wind from this direction, whereas Albertus Magnus (Liber meteorum III 1, 20: Alberti Magni Ratisponensis episcopi, ordinis Praedicatorum Opera omnia, ed. August Borgnet, IV, Paris: Ludovicus Vivès, 1890, p. 605) used the latter. The same is true for the WNW wind, which is called by the Isidorian and Albertine names chorus and cyrci[zi]us, respectively. The name of the SSW wind (austronothus) may be a conflation of the Isidorian (austroafricus) and Albertine (notus) names. In fact, Isidore and Albertus Magnus are two of the sources that are most cited by Galvaneus in his Cronica universalis.
3 On the vernacular names of the winds and their spelling, cf. Michael Metzeltin, Die Terminologie des Seekompasses in Italien und auf der Iberischen Halbinsel bis 1600 (Basel: Apollonia-Verlag, 1970), pp. 261–330.
4 On the medieval representation of the winds and the theories related to them, cf. E. G. R. Taylor. “The ‘De Ventis’ of Matthew Paris,” Imago Mundi 2 (1937), pp. 23–6; Barbara Obrist, “Wind Diagrams and Medieval Cosmology,” Speculum 72 (1997): 33–84; Joëlle Ducos, La météorologie en français au Moyen Âge (XIIIe-XIVe siècles) (Paris: Honoré Champion, 1998), pp. 165–77, 433–41.
5 Aristoteles, Meteorologica II 6. At the time of Galvaneus, this classification was mainly known due to the detailed discussion by Albertus Magnus, Liber meteororum III 1, 20–3 (ed. Borgnet pp. 605–11).
6 Brunetto Latini, Tresor, I 106, eds. Pietro G. Beltrami et alii (Torino: Einaudi, 2007): 148–150. Cf. Ducos, La météorologie en français, pp. 263–4; Patrick Gauthier Dalché, “Pere Marsili, une carte majorquine (1313) et l’‘ardua controversia’ des vents,” Itineraria 5 (2006), pp. 153–70: 155.
7 Similar representations, which connect the winds with the celestial circles, are found in Albertus Magnus’s Liber meteororum (ed. Borgnet, p. 609) and in Petrus of Abano’s Conciliator differentiarum, cap. 67 (see for example ms. Vaticanus lat. 2447, f. 102 r: https://digi.vatlib.it/view/MSS_Vat.lat.2447). Neither Albertus nor Petrus, however, include any seafaring wind.
8 On Arim or Arin see (among others): Emmanuelle Vagnon, Cartographies et représentations de l’Orient méditerranéen en Occident (du milieu du XIIIe à la fin du XVe siècle), (Turnhout: Brepols, 2011), pp. 47–9; Patrick Gautier Dalché, “Un débat scientifique au moyen âge: l’habitation de la zone torride (jusq’au XIIIe siècle),” in Méditerranée et Océan Indien. Deux mondes en miroir [= «Topoi» Suppl. 15 (2017)], pp. 145–81: 152–3; Alfred Hiatt, “The Transmission of Theoretical Geography: Maps of the Climata and the Reception of De causis Proprietatum Elementorum,” in Cartography between Christian Europe and the Arabic-Islamic World, 1100–1500. Divergent Traditions, ed. Alfred Hiatt (Leiden-Boston: Brill, 2021), pp. 40–73: 48–59.
9 Petri Alphonsi Dialogus, I 36; ed. Carmen Cardelle de Hartmann, Darko Senekovic and Thomas Ziegler, trans. Peter Stotz, vol. I (Florence: SISMEL–Edizioni del Galluzzo, 2018), p. 30.
10 Gauthier Dalché, Pere Marsili, warns against accentuating the opposition between scientific speculation and practical knowledge, which the medievals did not perceive as a contrast. Cf. also Francesc Relaño, “Mapamundis catalans: una tradició cartográfica desapercebuda,” Treballs de la Societat Catalana de Geografia 52 (2001): pp. 393–409, 396–397.
11 Gautier Dalché, “Pere Marsili”. The passage of Pere Marsili is also commented on by Ramon J. Pujades i Bataller, Les cartes portolanes. La rapresentació medieval d’una mar solcada (Barcelona: Lunwerg, 2007), pp. 198–9, 475–6, 480; contrary to Gautier Dalché’s opinion, Pujades i Bataller does not rule out that the nautical chart used by Pere Marsili was a Genoese map.
12 The map is freely accessible on the Biblioteca Ambrosiana website (http://213.21.172.25/0b02da828007c5c1). On this map cf. Patrick Boucheron, “La carta di Milano di Galvano Fiamma-Piero Ghioldi (fine XIV secolo),” in Rappresentare la città: Topografie urbane nell’Italia di antico regime (Reggio Emilia: Diabasis, 2010), pp. 77–97.
13 La Cronaca estravagante di Galvano Fiamma, eds. Sante Ambrogio Céngarle Parisi and Massimiliano David (Milano: Casa del Manzoni, 2013), with a reproduction of the map (pp. 716–21).
14 Paolo Chiesa, “Così era Milano nel Trecento. Un percorso didattico sul manoscritto Ambrosiano A 275 inf,” in Miscellanea graecolatina II (Milano-Roma: Biblioteca Ambrosiana - Bulzoni 2014), pp. 391–414.
15 Another concentric map of Milan, also oriented to the south, is found in another work of Galvaneus, the so-called Cronicon maius (ms. Ambrosiano A 275 inf, f. 93 v); the setting is the same as in the Cronica extravagans, although the representation is very simplified, limited to reproducing the (presumed) gates of the ancient Roman city. Among the cartographic representations associated with Galvaneus, it is worth recalling a map of Italy, once again oriented to the south, with simple lines or inscriptions indicating the main cities, ports, mountain ranges, rivers, and roads (Cronica extravagans, ms. Ambrosiano A 275 inf, f. 51 v). These maps are also freely accessible on the Biblioteca Ambrosiana website. For more details, see the papers cited in notes 12–14 above.
16 Francesco Surdich, “Il problema delle sorgenti del Nilo dai testi biblici alla cultura umanistica,” in Chiare, fresche e dolci acque. Le sorgenti nell’esperienza odeporica e nella storia del territorio (Roma: Cisge 2001), pp. 159–236; Emmanuelle Vagnon, Cartographies et représentations: 80–3; Robin Seignobos, “L’origine occidentale du Nil dans la géographie latine et arabe avant le XIVe siècle,” in Orbis disciplinae. Hommages en l’honneur de Patrick Gautier Dalché (Turnhout: Brepols, 2017): pp. 371–94. On the location of the Earthly Paradise in Africa see Patrick Gautier Dalché, “Le Paradis aux antipodes? Une Distinctio divisionis terre et paradisi delitiarum (XIVe siècle),” in Liber largitorius. Études d’histoire médiévale offertes à Pierre Toubert par ses élèves (Genève: Droz 1994), pp. 101–13: 110–2 [repr: P. G. D., L’espace géographique au Moyen Age, pp. 395–417: 414–6]; Francesc Relaño, “Paradise in Africa: The History of a Geographical Myth from its Origins in Medieval Thought to its Gradual Demise in Early Modern Europe,” Terrae Incognitae 36 (2004): pp. 1–11; Alessandro Scafi, Mapping Paradise: A History of Heaven on Earth (London–Chicago: British Library–University of Chicago Press, 2006), pp. 173–6; 183–95.
17 «Hinc navigando per tramontana per M miliaria invenitur provintia de Murfuli. Inde sequitur provintia de Maaban, ubi est corpus beati Thome apostoli. Hinc eundo per ponent invenitur provintia dicta Lar, ubi sunt Bragmanes phylosophy. Inde versus garbin per Vc miliaria invenitur terra dicta Colium. Inde venitur ad provintiam dictam Camari, ubi videtur tramontana alta super terra<m> per unum brachium. In provintia de Melibar apparet tramontana alta super terram duobus brachiis. In provintia de Cosurach apparet tramontana alta super terram brachiis VI. In Libro de longitudine et latitudine civitatum habetur quod insula dicta Ayzafur habet longitudinis graduum CLXXII et latitudinis graduum VI. Et de hac insula dicit Marchus Paulus» (“From here, sailing towards north for a thousand miles, one finds the province of Murfuli. Then the Maabar province follows, where the body of the Blessed Thomas the Apostle is located. Hence, going towards west there is the province named Lar, where Brahman philosophers live. Then, towards southwest for 500 miles there is a land named Colium. Then one reaches the province of Cumari, where the North Star appears one arm high above the Earth. In the Melibar province, the North Star is two arms high above the Earth. In the Cosurach province, the North Star appears six arms high above the Earth. In the Book of the Longitude and Latitude of Cities, it is said that the island called Ayzafur has a longitude of 172 degrees and a latitude of 6 degrees. And Marco Polo talks about this island too”). The regions mentioned by Galvaneus are those called Murfili, Lac, Coylum, Comari, and Goçurath in the Latin version of Polo’s book (III 29–35) by the domenican Franciscus Pipinus (Francesco Pipino da Bologna; d. 1327–28), the text probably used by Galvaneus (freely available from the electronic edition of Samuela Simion, based on Florence, Biblioteca Riccardiana, MS 983: http://virgo.unive.it/ecf-workflow/books/Ramusio/testi_completi/P_marcato-main.html).
18 I have not been able to identify this island, which is not actually mentioned by Polo. The coordinates are stated to be taken from a Liber de longitudine et latitudine civitatum, and indicate a point in the very far east (calculated from the extreme west, probably the Insulae fortunatae). For these types of tables, derived from Ptolemy through Arabic intermediaries, cf. John K. Wright, “Notes on the Knowledge of Latitude and Longitude in the Middle Ages,” Isis 5 (1923): 75–98; Patrick Gautier Dalché, “Connaissance et usages géographiques des coordonnées dans le moyen âge latin (du vénérable Béde à Roger Bacon),” in Science antique, science médiévale (autour d’Avranches 235). Actes du Colloque International (Mont-Saint-Michel, 4–7 septembre 1998) (Paderborn, etc.: Olms-Weidmann, 2000): 401–36 [repr: P. G. D., L’espace géographique au Moyen Age (Florence: SISMEL - Edizioni del Galluzzo, 2013): 59–75].
19 According to Ghioldi’s style of copying, the blank line is an indication that the next text in the model was located in an anomalous position, for example as a marginal addition.
20 See Paolo Chiesa, “Galvano Fiamma e Giovanni da Carignano. Una nuova fonte sull’ambasceria etiopica a Clemente V e sulla spedizione oceanica dei fratelli Vivaldi,” Itineraria 17 (2018), pp. 63–107; Alessandro Bausi and Paolo Chiesa, “The Hystoria Ethyopie in the Cronica universalis of Galvaneus de la Flamma (d. c. 1345),” Aethiopica 22 (2019), pp. 7–57.
21 Actually, the Tractatus is also quoted in the Supplementum cronicarum, a historical encyclopedia written by the Italian friar Giacomo Filippo Foresti at the end of the fifteenth century (first edition at Venice, apud Bernardinum Benalium, 1483 [GW M10969; ISTC ij00208000], book VIII, ff. 17 v-18 r). Foresti offers a reduced synthesis of the same Ethiopian news provided by Galvaneus. He claims that his source was “a distinguished priest of St. Mark in Genoa” (sacerdos quidam Genuensis sancti Martii prepositus, vir quidem egregius), who “wrote a treatise which he also named mappa” (tractatum edidit quem et mappam nominavit). The formulation of Foresti, one and a half centuries later than Galvaneus’s, is contradictory and ambiguous, probably because the friar only had second-hand information about the object he was talking about. Before the discovery of the citations by Galvaneus, some scholars thought that Giovanni da Carignano’s chart, made in the early fourteenth century, could also be defined as a Tractatus due to the number of captions written on it. Galvaneus’s hints, however, demonstrate that we are actually dealing with two different artifacts, because the news reported in the Tractatus is not found in the celebrated chart of Giovanni da Carignano. The chronology of the two authors and the fact that all the news reported by Foresti is already reported by Galvaneus, in a more extended form, leaves open the possibility that Galvaneus is Foresti’s source; in this case, the formulation tractatum … quem et mappam nominavit were a misinterpretation by Foresti.
22 And there is no reason to think otherwise. If the pronoun quam (feminine, referring to the mappa) were a misspelling for quem (masculine, referring to the tractatus), the sacerdos would be identified with the author of the treatise and not necessarily with the author of the map. Such an assumption, however, is very improbable. Galvaneus uses the verb componere, as in the first passage above, a verb well suited to a diagram or a picture, but less appropriate for a text. In the case of text, he uses scribere everywhere in the Cronica universalis. In contrast, the verb componere is usual for tables and images, i.e. it is used twice to refer to a longitudinal tabula centered on Harim/Arin («auctores qui tabulas composuerunt», III 275; III 261); and in the previous reference to the mappa, Galvaneus uses the word compositor (“maker”) without identifying the individual.
23 On Giovanni da Carignano and his chart: Theobald Fischer, Sammlung mittelalterlicher Welt- und Seekarten italienischen Ursprungs und aus italienischen Bibliotheken und Archiven (Venezia: Ongania, 1886), pp. 117–26; T. Campbell, “Portolan Charts from the Late Thirteenth Century to 1500,” in The History of Cartography, I: Cartography in Prehistoric, Ancient, and Medieval Europe and the Mediterranean, eds. J. B. Harley and David Woodward (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987), pp. 371–463: 404–6; Gaetano Ferro, La tradizione cartografica genovese e Cristoforo Colombo (Roma: Istituto Poligrafico e Zecca dello Stato, 1992), pp. 30–4; Ramon J. Pujades i Bataller, Les cartes portolanes, pp. 254, 328–32, 489–90, 517; Graziella Galliano, “Mauro, Giovanni (Giovanni da Carignano),” in Dizionario biografico degli Italiani, vol. 72 (Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, 2009), pp. 399–401. A reproduction of Giovanni da Carignano’s lost chart is published by Yusuf Kamal, Monumenta cartographica Africae et Aegypti, vol. IV, fasc. 2 (Cairo: Wieder, 1939), pp. 1137–8. An easily accessible reproduction is available on the State Archive website, Florence (https://www.archiviodistato.firenze.it/archividigitali/unita-archivistica/?id=35); an enhanced image, obtained by melding the various copies of the old photograph into a single, at https://medea.fc.ul.pt/view/chart/153 (by Alberto Quartapelle, whom I thank for the advice).
24 Several copies exist of Vesconte’s mappa mundi. For a comprehensive study see Evelyn Edson, “Reviving the Crusade: Sanudo’s Schemes and Vesconte’s Maps,” in Eastward Bounds. Travels and Travelers, 1050–1550, ed. Rosamund Allen (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2004), pp. 131–55.
25 On Antoniotto Usodimare Francesco Surdich, “Usodimare, Antoniotto,” in Dizionario biografico degli Italiani, vol. 97 (Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, 2020), pp. 628–9. The classical studies are: Jakob Gråberg [från Hemsö], “Notizia dell’Itinerario di Antoniotto Usodimare,” in Annali di Geografia e di Statistica, vol. II (Genova: In Scurreria la Vecchia, 1802), pp. 280–92; Rinaldo Caddeo, Le navigazioni atlantiche di Alvise da Ca’ da Mosto, Antoniotto Usodimare e Niccoloso da Recco, (Milano: Alpes, 1929); Paolo Revelli, Cristoforo Colombo e la scuola cartografica genovese (Genova: Stabilimenti Italiani Arti Grafiche, 1937), pp. 291–304.
26 Jacques Paviot, “Un mappemonde génoise disperu de la fin du XIVe siècle,” in L’iconographie. Études sur les rapports entre textes et images dans l’Occident médiéval – Cahiers du Léopard d’Or 10 (2001), pp. 69–97. We will quote the text according to Paviot’s transcript and the paragraphing he himself provided.
27 Ibidem, p. 71. We can add a reference to the list of kings: the one concerning the Mamluk sultan al-Malik al-Nāṣir al-Dīn Muḥammad ibn Qalāwūn (1302–1340), named Melchanazar at par. 77 (not identified by Paviot, p. 71).
28 Paviot identifies Calech mentioned in the Itinerarium (par. 45) with Kebek, Khan of the Chagatai in 1309 and again in 1318–1321, and Bonsaiti (par. 34) with Abu Saïd, Khan of Persia since 1317.
29 «Ista ydola est in civitate de Arim, que semper cum digito suo signat solem de die. In ista parte orientis est Paradisus terrenallis, locus valde delectabilis, qui cincto est muro ignis usque ad celum … » (par. 93–94). Paviot (p. 72) believes that Paradise in the “Usodimare mappa mundi”, is located in Asia, evidently on the basis of the wording in ista parte Orientis; the succession of places, however, suggests that the chart positioned it in the eastern part of Africa, as does the “Catalan Estense mappa mundi,” as we will see.
30 par. 44: «In civitate Botifolii dominatur rex Stephanus, cristianus, ubi est corpus beati Thome apostoli».
31 par. 66: «in isto mari Indiarum sunt insule MDCCXXXXVIII, in quibus sunt multa mirabilia».
32 par. 68: «ista insulla vocatur Custamis Trapolana». The identification with Taprobane is suggested by Paviot, p. 74, and is confirmed by the circumstance that the legend of Trapobana in the “Catalan Atlas” of 1375 has a very similar text.
33 We highlight that a mention of the zinziber is made in Pietro Vesconte’s mappa mundi, but on the African coast of the Red Sea.
34 The “Usodimare mappa mundi” identifies the emperor of Ethiopia as the Prester John, accepting the explanation of his transfer to Africa after the defeat suffered by Genghis Khān, which was also narrated by Marco Polo (I 51–53 in the version of Pipinus; see note 17). This identification does not appear in the Tractatus de mappa, where the religious leader of Ethiopia is called Preytzan and is quite distinct from the emperor. In the “Usodimare mappa mundi” (par. 91), the name of the emperor of Ethiopia is Abet Selip, «quod vult dicere “centum cives”» («a name that means hundred citizens»): centum cives seems to be a textual corruption of servus crucis, the regal name referred to by the Tractatus. Cf. E. Denison Ross, “Prester John and the Empire of Ethiopia,” in Travels and Travelers of the Middle Ages (New York: Barnes & Noble, 1926), pp. 174–194: 185. Another piece of information shared by the “Usodimare mappa mundi” and the Tractatus de mappa is the fact that the Ethiopian churches are covered in gold («multe ecclesie aper[a]te sunt lamaris auri», Paviot par. 91; «ecclexie Ethiopie in multis locis sunt cohoperte ex auro», Cron. univ. III 375).
35 On the other hand, the “Usodimare mappa mundi” agrees with Iacopo in indicating the names of the navigators as the Vivaldi brothers, while the Tractatus de mappa reported by Galvaneus indicates the name of Uberto di Savignone; cf. Chiesa, Galvano Fiamma e Giovanni da Carignano, pp. 102–3.
36 Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Ms. esp. 30. The legends were edited by Georges Grosjean, Der katalanische Weltatlas vom Jahre 1375 (Dietikon-Zürich: Urs Graf Verlag, 1977); cf. also L’Atles català (edició facsímil) (Barcelona: Edicions 62, 2005), with an introductory essay by Ramon Pujades i Bataller, “Un mapamundi de transició e la segona meitat del segle XIV,” pp. 15–25. A recent essay on this chart is by Emmanuel Vagnon, “Pluricultural Sources of the Catalan Atlas,” in Cartography between Christian Europe and the Arabic-Islamic World, pp. 160–88.
37 Roma, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, Carte nautiche 1. About the author, see Ramon Pujades i Bataller, “Pareto, Bartolomeo,” in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, vol. 81 (Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, 2014), pp. 335–7, who also attributes to Pareto’s atelier the fragmentary “portolan mappa mundi” Istanbul, Topkapi Sarayi Müzesi, H 1827. The affinities of Pareto’s portolan chart with the “Usodimare mappa mundi” are highlighted by Paviot, “Un mappemonde génoise disperu,” pp. 77–8.
38 Modena, Biblioteca Estense Universitaria, C.G.A. 1 (freely available at https://edl.beniculturali.it/beu/850013654); cf. Il Mappamondo Catalano Estense, eds. Ernesto Milano and Annalisa Battini (Dietikon-Zürich: Urs Graf Verlag, 1995). Cf. also Francesc Relaño, The Shaping of Africa. Cosmographic Discourse and Cartographic Science in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2002), pp. 103–9.
39 Instead of the more commonly used Arin or Aren.
40 For mentions of an Earthly Paradise located in Africa see note 16. A trace remains, inter alia, in the 1457 (probably Genoese) lenticular mappa mundi (known in the literature as the “Genoese mappamundi”: Firenze, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, Portolano 1). The legend for this land is: «In hac regione depinxerunt quidam paradisum deliciarum, alii vero ultra Indias ad orientem eum esse dixerunt. Sed quoniam hec est cosmographorum descripcio, qui nullam de eo fecerunt mentionem, ideo omittitur hic de eo narratio» («some drew the Paradise of Delights in this region; others said it is in the east, beyond India. But since our drawing depends on cosmographers, who said nothing about it, we make no mention as well»). Cf. Mappa mundi 1457. Carta conservata presso la Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze con la segnatura Portolano 1, eds. Angelo Cattaneo (Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, 2008). This mappa mundi depicts, inter alia, the burial of St. Thomas and Taprobane, directly south of India, and mentions the zinziber as an Indian product («hic colligitur zenzero copiose»).
41 According to Relaño, The Shaping of Africa, p. 105, the location of the Earthly Paradise in Africa is a feature of the Catalan tradition of the mappae mundi, dating back to a previous period in respect to the preserved charts. Genoese and Catalan traditions, however, are closely associated; cf. Pujades i Bataller, Les cartes portolanes, pp. 248–63.
42 Patrick Gautier Dalché, “«Quando vuoli travare la longitudine d’alchuna citta da Occidente, guarda nel mappamondo da maiolica … ». La mesure des coordonnées géographiques selon Paolo dell’Abbaco,” Micrologus 19 (2011), pp. 151–200: pp. 181–3.
43 Ramon J. Pujades i Bataller, “Mappaemundi veneziane e catalane del basso medioevo: due rami nati dallo stesso tronco,” in Venezia e la nuova oikoumene. Cartografia del Quattrocento – Venedig und die neue Oikoumene. Kartographie im 15. Jahrhundert (Roma: Viella, 2016), pp. 73–96. Cf. also Relaño, Mapamundis catalans.
44 As we said (note 19), the description of the Indian lands and islands that Galvaneus derives from the mappa Ianuensis (book III) appears to be an additional passage with respect to an earlier draft of the work. In any case, the addition is assumed to be attributed to Galvaneus himself, as with other similar passages within the work. To the contrary, the mention of the mappa in book I of the Cronica universalis with regard to Arin and the Earthly Paradise appears to be perfectly embedded in the text.
45 See above, notes 26-28.
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Paolo Chiesa
Paolo Chiesa is professor of Medieval Latin Literature at the University of Milan, and chief-editor of the international journal Filologia Mediolatina, published in Florence. His main fields of research are textual criticism and studies on the manuscript transmission, applied to medieval Latin works. Among his publications, Medieval Latin Philology. An Overview through Case Studies (2019), and critical or commented editions of William of Rubruk’s travelog in Mongolia (2011), Dante’s Monarchy (with Andrea Tabarroni, 2013), Einhard’s Vita Karoli (2014), Liutprand’s Antapodosis (2015). [email protected]