de la Cosa's map is one of the most important cartographic records
of early European exploration. Housed in the Museo Naval in Madrid,
it is the oldest map in existence to show the discoveries of the
new world. Its creator was the owner and mate of the Santa Maria,
Columbus's flagship on the first voyage in 1492 and the cartographer
and captain of the Niña on the second voyage.
Much like Abraham
Atlas of 1375, de la Cosa's map displays characteristics of
two distinct traditions: the mappaemundi (from late antiquity and
medieval periods) and the portolan sea charts. The detailed outlines
of the coast—and the magnetic rhumb lines that cover the entire
map—are characteristic of the portolan sea charts used by
sailors since the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Furthermore,
the fact that the figures and inscriptions on the map do not share
a common orientation indicates that it was meant to be placed on
a table and read from all sides—another characteristic feature
of the portolan charts. But unlike more narrowly focused portolan
charts, this map also exhibits elements of the mappaemundi,
such as information about inland geopolitics that was of no immediate
use to the sailor.
map incorporates both the geographic knowledge of the Spanish
explorers and the information gained from Portuguese voyages around
the southern tip of Africa. Some scholars also argue that the representation
of the land north of the Caribbean must have been added based on
information from John Cabot's voyages of 1497 and 1498. Such maps
reflect an attempt to assimilate geographic information that would
contribute to the on-going development of European political and
economic interests in the far reaches of the world. For Spain in
this period, that primarily meant the westward route to the Indies,
and the location and coastal features of the Indies are of particular
importance on this map. The New World is out of proportion to Europe
and Asia, but it is unclear whether this reflects the contemporary
significance of the Indies to Spain or ignorance of their true proportions.
The merging of the concern for detailed accuracy derived from the
portolan charts and the more iconic nature of the mappaemundi
exemplify the dynamic relationship between changing views of the
world and the mutable conventions of representation.
University at Buffalo, State University of New York
Martínez, Ricardo Cerezo. La
Cartografíía Española en los Siglos XIV,
XV, y XVI. Madrid: Museo Naval, 1994.
Sandman, Allison. "Mirroring the World:
Sea Charts, Navigation, and Territorial Claims in Sixteenth-Century
Spain." In Merchants and Marvels: Commerce, Science,
and Art in Early Modern Europe, edited by Pamela H. Smith
and Paula Findlen, 83-108. New York: Routledge, 2002.