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The Caverio Map (also known as Caveri Map or Canerio Map) is a map drawn by
Nicolay de Caveri
Nicolay de Caveri (14??-15??) was a map-maker from Genoa, Italy. He has also been known as Nicolay Canerio, Nicolo Caveri, Nicolo Canerio, Nicolaus de Caveri, Nicolaus de Caverio, Nicholas de Caveri, and Nicolai de Caveri, all based upon variant ...
or Caverio, circa 1506.
It is kept at the
Bibliothèque Nationale de France
The Bibliothèque nationale de France (, 'National Library of France'; BnF) is the national library of France, located in Paris on two main sites known respectively as ''Richelieu'' and ''François-Mitterrand''. It is the national reposito ...
in Paris.
It is drawn on parchment by hand and coloured. It is composed of ten sections or panels, the whole forming a rectangle measuring 2.25 by 1.15 metres. This undated map was one of the primary sources used to make the
Waldseemüller map
The Waldseemüller map or ''Universalis Cosmographia'' ("Universal Cosmography") is a printed wall map of the world by German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller, originally published in April 1507. It is known as the first map to use the nam ...
in 1507. On the basis of this it is mostly dated to c. 1506.
The map is signed with "Nicolay de Caveri Januensis". It was probably either made in
Lisbon by the Genoese Caveri, or copied by him in Genoa from a Portuguese map very similar to the
Cantino map, albeit not the Cantino map itself.
The Cantino map was in
Genoa
Genoa ( ; it, Genova ; lij, Zêna ). is the capital of the Regions of Italy, Italian region of Liguria and the List of cities in Italy, sixth-largest city in Italy. In 2015, 594,733 people lived within the city's administrative limits. As of t ...
toward the end of 1502 and some authors have assumed that Caveri could have used it as the basis of his map, at least for portions of Greenland, Newfoundland, and Brazil coast. However, other regions of the Caverio planisphere derive from other sources.
Sanz (1961) argued that the east coast of North America is drawn with surprising accuracy, especially "when we consider the general belief that the Europeans neither saw nor set foot on the beaches in the southern states of the present-day U.S.A. before
Ponce de León
Ponce may refer to:
*Ponce (surname)
*
*Ponce, Puerto Rico, a city in Puerto Rico
** Ponce High School
** Ponce massacre, 1937
* USS ''Ponce'', several ships of the US Navy
*Manuel Ponce, a Mexican composer active in the 20th century
* British sla ...
arrived there in 1512 or 1513,
Giovanni da Verrazzano
Giovanni da Verrazzano ( , , often misspelled Verrazano in English; 1485–1528) was an Italian ( Florentine) explorer of North America, in the service of King Francis I of France.
He is renowned as the first European to explore the Atlant ...
in 1523,
Lucas Vásquez de Ayllón in 1520-1524 or
Esteban Gómez Esteban () is a Spanish male given name, derived from Greek Στέφανος (Stéphanos) and related to the English names Steven and Stephen. Although in its original pronunciation the accent is on the penultimate syllable, English-speakers tend ...
in 1525." However, if this map is influenced by the Cantino map as stated above, this is explained by the João Fernandes Labrador and Pedro de Barcelos explorations from 1495 and 1498, and again by John Cabot in 1498 under the orders of King
Manuel I of Portugal
Manuel I (; 31 May 146913 December 1521), known as the Fortunate ( pt, O Venturoso), was list of Portuguese monarchs, King of Portugal from 1495 to 1521. A member of the House of Aviz, Manuel was Duke of Beja and Duke of Viseu, Viseu prior to su ...
. As well as the Brazilian coastline by Portuguese explorer
Pedro Álvares Cabral
Pedro Álvares Cabral ( or ; born Pedro Álvares de Gouveia; c. 1467 or 1468 – c. 1520) was a Portuguese nobleman, military commander, navigator and explorer regarded as the European discoverer of Brazil. He was the first human ...
exploration in 1500.
The inscription off the coast of ''vera cruz'' (America/Brazil) says: “The land called Vera Cruz was found by Pedro Alvares Cabral, a gentleman of the household of the King of Portugal. He discovered it as commander of a fleet of 14 ships that that King sent to Calicut, and on the way to India, he came across this land here, which he took to be terra firma
ainlandin which there are many people, described as going about, men and women, as naked as their mothers bore them; they are lighter-skinned."
["A vera crus chamada per nome aquall achom pedralvares cabral fidalgo da cassa del rey de portugall e aelle adescobrio indo por capitanio de XIIII navos que rey mandava a caliqut ie nel caracho induto por com esta terra aqual terra secrem esser terra firme em qual ha muita gente de descrica vam nuos omes e mulieres como suas mais os pario sum mais brancos ”. ''Opus Nicolay de Caverio ianuensis,']
/ref> The inscription was drawn from the Cantino map.
See also
*Early world maps
The earliest known world maps date to classical antiquity, the oldest examples of the 6th to 5th centuries BCE still based on the flat Earth paradigm.
World maps assuming a spherical Earth first appear in the Hellenistic period.
The developments ...
*Piri Reis map
The Piri Reis map is a world map compiled in 1513 by the Ottoman admiral and cartographer Piri Reis. Approximately one third of the map survives; it shows the western coasts of Europe and North Africa and the coast of Brazil with reasonable accu ...
Notes
{{Reflist
References
* Carlos Sanz
Carlos Sanz is an American actor. He is best known for playing the main villain, Carlito, in the 2006 film ''Crank''.
Early life
Sanz grew up in Chicago and has two brothers, Steve and the actor Horatio Sanz. He and his family grew up in the Hum ...
, ''Mapas antiguos del mundo'', Madrid, 1961.
* Gaspar, Joaquim A. (2012) 'Blunders, Errors and Entanglements: Scrutining the Cantino planisphere with a Cartometric Eye', ''Imago Mundi'', Vol. 64, Part 2: 181-20
External links
Zoomable image of the Caverio map on the Bibliothèque Nationale de France website
Historic maps of the world
1505 works
Bibliothèque nationale de France collections
16th-century maps and globes