The Pisana Chart
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THE PISANA CHART Really a primitive portolan chart made in the 13 th Century? 1 by Ramon Josep Pujades i Bataller Archive of the Crown of Aragon C/ Almogàvers 77 08018 Barcelona [email protected] The Pisana Chart has been ascribed highly disparate dates since it was discovered by the scientific commu - nity in the first half of the 19 th century. over the course of the 20 th century, however, the dating of the chart to the end of the 13 th century, which I myself had considered valid until now, gradually became customary, although there were never sound reasons for that. As a result of this late 13 th century dating, another, close - ly-related chart —the Cortona Chart— was dated to the early 14 th century, and another chart that has recent - ly surfaced —the so-called Lucca Chart— has also been presented as a chart created before 1327. This lat - ter chart, moreover, is even more directly related to the Pisana Chart than the Cortona one because it shares many features with it, from the type of gothic script to a whole series of specific characteristics that they could not have shared by chance, and that reveal their derivation from a common model. The big problem is that the Lucca Chart, though also a product of low technical quality, has a much richer content than the rudimen - tary Pisana Chart. Upon analyzing it carefully, from its ornamentation to the cartographic design, we discover with surprise that it is full of very late elements. So late that some have never been documented until well into the 15 th century. These discoveries force us to modify the traditional dating of the Pisana Chart as well, and to acknowledge that in this case as in so many others, we exaggerated the antiquity of the chart by identify - ing a rudimentary nature with primitivism. La carte Pisane a reçu des datations très disparates depuis sa découverte par la communauté scientifique dans la première moitié du XIX e siècle. Au cours du XX e siècle cependant, une datation de la fin du XIII e siècle - que j’avais moi-même, jusqu’à aujourd’hui, considérée comme valable - s’est progressivement imposée, malgré la faiblesse des arguments en sa faveur. En conséquence de cette première datation de la fin du XIII e siècle, la carte de Cortone, également non datée, a été estimée du début du XIV e siècle, et la carte récem - ment découverte à Lucques a été datée d’avant 1327. Cette dernière est davantage en lien avec la carte Pisane que la carte de Cortone, car elle présente plusieurs points communs avec elle, depuis l’écriture gothique jusqu’à des éléments caractéristiques qui ne peuvent être le fait du hasard et qui témoignent d’un modèle commun. Le problème essentiel est que la carte de Lucques, laquelle est également un artefact de qualité médiocre, présente un contenu bien plus riche que la carte Pisane si rudimentaire. Une analyse appro - fondie de son ornementation et de son contenu révèle de manière surprenante des éléments tardifs, si tardifs que certains n’apparaissent par ailleurs qu’à partir du XV e siècle. Ces découvertes obligent à modifier consi - dérablement la datation traditionnelle de la carte Pisane et à reconnaître que, dans ce cas comme dans beau - coup d’autres, les historiens ont exagéré l’antiquité de la carte en prenant l’aspect rudimentaire du document pour une preuve de primitivisme. 1 This paper is part of the research project financed by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation entitled “La Corona de Aragón en el Mediterráneo bajomedieval. Interculturalidad, mediación, integración y transferencias culturales” (HAR2010-16361; dir. Roser Salicrú). CFC (N°216- Juin 2013) 17 1 A long tradition of datings as dis - names than other ancient charts, and that it included parate as they were poorly reaso - some toponymic forms also present in the ned. Compasso . The issue of dating the Pisana Chart became even more complicated because Motzo also Since the famous anonymo us nautical chart called into doubt the traditionally accepted idea of the known as the Pisana Chart or Carte Pisane was pre - chart’s Genoese origin, considering it more likely sented to the scientific community in the mid-19 th cen - (although this was also groundless) to be a Venetian tury by E.-F. Jomard, the stability of its name — work 5. derived solely from the fact that it was supposedly purchased from an old Pisan family— has contrasted By the 1980s and the publication of Mollat and La with the great multiplicity of dates that have been pro - Roncière’s Les Portulans in 1984, the dating to ca. 1290 had become quite widespread. The only basis posed by several authors for this chart, covering a for such a specific dating, however, was an unfound - range of about two centuries, from the late 12 th to the ed association between a red cross painted inland in th late 14 . However, when we start to gather and read the Syria-Palestine area of the Pisana Chart and the the literature proposing these various dates, we nearby coastal toponym of Acre (conquered by the immediately realize the weakness of the arguments Muslims in 1291). Shortly after this, Tony Campbell, put forth to justify them. Jomard presented it as a 14 th - in his brilliant chapter on medieval portolan charts century chart, and this dating was endorsed by the for the University of Chicago’s The History of scholar Armand d’Avezac. An experienced palaeog - Cartography , noted the nature of that absolutely rapher, d’Avezac, realized that the rudimentary unjustified association, but maintained the dating of nature of the chart could not hide that « l’écriture the chart to the late 13 th century 6. Given these posi - [offre] des tendances gothiques inclinant vers la fin tions, only Patrick Gautier Dalché, with the insight that characterizes most of his historiographical pro - du XIV e siècle ». 2 Not a word more, however, was duction, stated that « son aspect grossier, comparé offered by him to justify this statement. This absence à la qualité des premiers témoins datés, devrait of reasoning greatly facilitated Nordenskiöld’s pro - amener à vérifier l’hypothèse selon laquelle il s’agi - posal of an alternative date on the sole basis of its rait plutôt d’une copie maladroite tardive »7. It coarser cartographic design as compared to those by seemed absolutely clear that the chart was not the Pietro Vesconte (especially in the Atlantic area). He work of a professional clerk, not only because of the asserted that « it is, however, probable that the Carte crudeness of its calligraphy, but also because no Pisane was referred with justice to the latter half of handwriting professional would have had trouble the 13 th or the first years of the 14 th century » 3. maintaining the horizontal when writing as the per - son who copied the Pisana Chart did. I also noticed There were even those who defended a much anomalies in its toponymic content that caught my older dating, ascribing it to the 12 th century 4. The edi - attention in a chart of such supposed antiquity, as, tion of the Compasso de navegare published by for instance, the presence of Palamós (on the Motzo, preceded by a long introductory study, demol - Catalan coast) and Muggia (written in red on the ished the proposed dating of the chart to before 1256. border between Italy and Slovenia). Palamós indi - Motzo pointed out the presence of the toponym cates a new terminus post quem for both the Pisana Chart and the Compasso de navegare because it Manfredonia on the Pisana Chart. The terminus post was a royal Catalan port founded in 1279 by King quem was thus established as the date of that city’s Peter II of Aragon in a virtually uninhabited location. foundation (1256), but Motzo insisted that it should Thus, it seems quite natural that it does not appear th still be considered as dating from the 13 century. on any dated chart until 1327. Without providing any justification, he stated that « l’argomento paleografico è invece favorevole a una The inclusion of Muggia caught my attention datazione anteriore di circa un secolo [a reference to because it was absent even on the Pizzigano broth - the previously mentioned dating proposed by ers’ dated works and was introduced only at the turn d’Avezac] , cioè, la seconda metà del sec. XIII ». As of the 15 th century on Venetian charts. Now I have further evidence to support this brief, arbitrary state - realised that such a late introduction was not acci - ment, Motzo only added that it contained fewer place- dental, because it coincides with the period in which 2 Avezac, 1867, p. 233. 3 Nordenskiöld, 1897, p. 56. 4 Uhden, 1935., p. 13 and p.17. 5 Motzo, 1947, p. XXVI -LXV . 6 Campbell, 1987, p. 404. 7 Gautier Dalché, 2001 ( Castrum 7), p. 11-12. 18 CFC (N°216- Juin 2013) the city ceased to be under the authority of the mere ex silentio arguments as deceptive as the Patriarch of Aquileia to definitively become part of presence of Siponto and the absence of the Venetian dominions 8. However, I was not aware Manfredonia in the Compasso , in combination with of this at that time nor of the presence of other late the latter’s presence on the Pisana Chart. place-names on the Pisana Chart whose history Nevertheless, the Cortona Chart, for instance, also contradicts an ancient dating of this chart. bears the toponym Siponto, but not Manfredonia 12 .