Page 237 - Art In The Age Of Exploration (Great Section on Chinese Art Ming Dynasty)

his activity between 1536 and 1564. In many ways gust). Next comes a double page with a repre- The world map itself is surrounded by the
his maps recall sea charts, but they seem never to sentation of the zodiac, then declination tables, winds blowing from twelve directions, with four
have been used in navigation: rather, they convey, and a page with an illustration of Jupiter. This is personifications (Faith, Charity, Justice, and
like a modern atlas, a global vision of the world as followed by eleven maps, beginning with the another Virtue) at the corners. The world is
seen from a European perspective and through world map. The others represent, respectively, superimposed on a projection constructed with
European eyes. More than seventy atlases by Bat- Spain and northwest Africa, northwest Europe, curved meridians and straight parallels. There are
tista Agnese are known today (see Wagner 1931, the western and then the central part of the large areas of unmapped territory, especially to
1-110; 1947, 28-30), two of them in the John Mediterranean, the Black Sea, the Greek archipe- the north of Asia and America. The shape of the
Carter Brown Library in Providence. The so- lago, the eastern Mediterranean, and finally, in Mediterranean, of Africa, and of Madagascar is
called Charles v atlas exhibited here is splendidly three maps, the Indian, Atlantic, and Pacific more or less accurate, but as in so many other
decorated. In fact it was made not for the emperor Oceans. The atlas is undated but internal evid- maps of this period Asia still depends on the
but for his son, the future Philip n of Spain. A ence, as well as a study of the chronology of world map of Ptolemy The triangular form of the
frontispiece to the atlas shows Providence handing Agnese's maps, suggests a date of 1543-1545. The Indian subcontinent is not understood; the island
over a globe to the young prince, together with world map is of the so called post-Californian that is now Sri Lanka (Taprobana) is still far too
the arms of Castile and Aragon, and a dedication type, showing California as a peninsula. This large; and China and the Malaysian peninsula are
to Philip: "Philippe Caroli Aug[usti] F[ilio] "discovery/' made during Francisco de Ulloa's drawn without any direct knowledge of their con-
Optimo princ[ipi] Providentia" (Providence to exploration of the Gulf of California in 1539, was figuration. America is depicted with more accu-
Philip, excellent prince, son of Charles the Au- first included by Agnese in his world map of 1542. racy, although it is connected to the west with

236 CIRCA 1492