The Tammar Luxoro Atlas, or Atlante Luxoro, is an anonymous collection of

Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, a Romance ethnic group related to or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance languag ...

portolan chart Portolan charts are nautical charts, first made in the 13th century in the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean basin and later expanded to include other regions. The word ''portolan'' comes from the Italian language, Italian ''portolano'', meaning " ...

s from the early 15th century, currently held at the

Biblioteca Civica Berio The Biblioteca Civica Berio (est. 1775) of Genoa, Italy, is a public library founded by . Around 1998 it moved into the former in the Carignano quartiere. Among its collections is the library of Demetrio Canevari. References ''This article in ...

Genoa Genoa ( ; ; ) is a city in and the capital of the Italian region of Liguria, and the sixth-largest city in Italy. As of 2025, 563,947 people live within the city's administrative limits. While its metropolitan city has 818,651 inhabitan ...

, Italy. The author is unknown, although believed to have been made by

Francesco de Cesanis Francesco, the Italian (and original) version of the personal name "Francis", is one of the most common given name among males in Italy. Notable persons with that name include: People with the given name Francesco * Francesco I (disambiguation) ...

Venice Venice ( ; ; , formerly ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 islands that are separated by expanses of open water and by canals; portions of the city are li ...

Background

The Luxoro Atlas is named after Tammar Luxoro, a 19th-century Genoese artist and collector, who once owned it. It was acquired by the city of

in 1899, and is currently held at the

, Italy. The Luxoro Atlas was once believed to originate from the early 14th century, and sometimes said to have been authored by the Genoese cartographer

Pietro Vesconte Pietro Vesconte (fl. 1310–1330) was a Genoese cartographer and geographer. A pioneer of the field of the portolan chart, he influenced Italian and Catalan mapmaking throughout the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. He appears to have been th ...

. However, according to more recent scholars, the Luxoro Atlas was probably made by the Venetian cartographer

, probably a little time before 1421.

Features

The atlas is composed of eight sheets of nautical charts. With each sheet at 11 cm x 16 cm, making it the smallest

from the period still extant.See Campbell "Census of pre-sixteenth-century portolan charts: Corrections and updates" (2011
entry 81
It is believed to have been designed for on-board use.Exhibition note, on th
Portolano Atlante Luxoro
at

e-corpus E-corpus was a collective heritage digital platform founded in 2009 in France by the Centre de Conservation du Livre. Its name is sometimes written in lowercase: e-corpus. It went offline in September 2016. Introduction E-corpus makes known, cata ...

The style is very much that of the Italian school of

s. The eight sheets are separate nautical charts, together covering the "normal portolan" range. # north Atlantic (oriented with South on top, depicting southern England, French coasts, northern Spain) # west Mediterranean (oriented E on top, depicting southern Spain, Balearic islands and northwest Africa) # central-west Mediterranean (oriented N, depicting southern France, Corsica, Sardinia, Tunisia) # central-east Mediterranean (oriented N, with southern Italy, Sicily, western Greece and Tripolitana) # Adriatic Sea (oriented S) # Aegean Sea (oriented N) # East Mediterranean (oriented W, Nile delta, Levantine coast, southern Anatolia) # Black Sea (oriented E) Unlike many earlier charts, the Luxoro Atlas makes no attempt to depict any

Atlantic islands This is a list of islands in the Atlantic Ocean, the largest of which is Greenland. Note that the definition of the ocean used by the International Hydrographic Organization (IHO) excludes the seas, gulfs, bays, etc., bordering the ocean itself. ...

(not even the

Canary Island The Canary Islands (; ) or Canaries are an archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean and the southernmost Autonomous Community of Spain. They are located in the northwest of Africa, with the closest point to the continent being 100 kilometres (62 mi ...

s), ending the west African coast around

Salé Salé (, ) is a city in northwestern Morocco, on the right bank of the Bou Regreg river, opposite the national capital Rabat, for which it serves as a commuter town. Along with some smaller nearby towns, Rabat and Salé form together a single m ...

, Morocco. Image:Luxoro Atlas sheets 1 & 2.jpg, Luxuro Atlas, sheets 1 & 2 (north Atlantic & west Mediterranean) Image:Luxoro Atlas sheets 3 & 4.jpg, Luxuro Atlas, sheets 3 & 4 (Central Mediterranean) Image:Luxoro Atlas sheets 5 & 6.jpg, Luxoro Atlas, sheets 5 & 6 (Adriatic and Aegean Seas) Image: Luxoro Atlas sheets 7 & 8.jpg, Luxoro Atlas, sheets 7 & 8 (East Mediterranean and Black Sea)

References

{{Reflist

Sources

* Online exhibit (zoomable chart)
Portolano Atlante Luxoro
at e-corpus * Campbell, T. (2011) "Anonymous works and the question of their attribution to individual chartmakers or to their supposed workshops"

accessed July 7, 2011) * Canale, M.G. (1866) ''Storia del commercio, dei viaggi, delle scoperte e carte nautiche degl'italiani '' Genoa: Tip. Sociale
online
Atlases Works of unknown authorship