Portolan Atlas

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Autore: Bartolomeo Olives (?)

Anno: 1580

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Bartolomeo Olives (?)
Portolan Atlas
Majorca (?), after 1580
World atlas containing 14 nautical charts: 1. Southern South America; 2. Northeastern South America; 3. West Indies, Central America, part of Mexico and northern South America; 4. Newfoundland and neighboring coast; 5. North Atlantic Ocean, Newfoundland, coasts of Portugal and part of Africa; 6. Eastern Mediterranean, Aegean Sea, Black Sea; 7. Central Mediterranean; 8. Western Mediterranean and western Europe, including British Isles; 9. Northeast coast of Africa; 10. West central coast of Africa; 11. South Africa and Madagascar; 12. Red Sea, Arabia, and part of Africa
13. India and Indian Ocean; 14. East Indies, including a large “Java Maior” (Australia?) and coast of Asia
Parchment, ff. 15 (14 sheets folded in center and pasted back to back); 325 × 231 mm. (map size, 306 × 442 mm. on double page openings). Bifolia attached sequentially. Border is red band between double ruled black lines. Modern pencilled foliation.
Black and red ink for nomenclature in a minuscule script with area names in several display scripts; land masses outlined in color, islands painted red, green, silver or gold; no compass roses, but on each chart one single 32 rhumb line pattern emanates from a central point with black, red and green ink for the principal directions and with symbols for the 8 winds marked at the outer edges of each chart; latitude scales only on charts 5, 8, and 9 (all in the Atlantic Ocean off Africa), no longitude; unnumbered scale of distance on each chart; decorated with series of rounded mountains and vignettes of cities with banners.
Bound, ca. 1830, in English salmon paper boards by Phillipps’ binder.
Attributed by H. R. Wagner, Cartography, 1:39 and 2:294, n. 209 to Bartolomeo Olives because of its marked similarity to the anonymous atlas ascribed to him in the Vatican Library, Cod. Urb. Lat. 283, dated 1562, described by Roberto Almagia in Monumenta cartographica vaticana (Vatican City 1944) 1:72-75 and pls. 37-43; probably made in Majorca (since nomenclature is mainly in Spanish, with many additions in Arabic on charts 6, 7, and 8), though the Olives/Oliva family of cartographers later worked in Messina and Marseilles; dated after 1580 because of the Spanish standards in Brazil and the alignment of the South American coast. Pencilled notes on paper backing of f. 1 “from Payne 1824” and “Payne MAP of the WORLD”; De Ricci cites Abate Celotti sale, Sotheby’s, 14 March 1825, “possibly n. 206 to Thorpe for Sir T. Phillipps”; however, HM 32 is described in the Middle Hill catalogue p. 11 as n. 208 of the Bibliotheca Celotti; Phillipps’ Middle Hill stamp and “Phillipps MS 956” on f. 1. Obtained privately for Henry E. Huntington through A. S. W. Rosenbach in 1924.

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