Visconte Maggiolo

Visconte Maggiolo (1478 – after 1549), also spelled ''Maiollo'' and ''Maiolo'', was a Genoese cartographer.

He was born in Genoa and maybe he was a fellow sailor of explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano. In 1511 he moved to Naples, where he produced three extant nautical atlases. Some historians say that he died of malaria in 1530; but archival documents show that he was still alive, in Genoa, at least in 1549, although he certainly was already dead in 1561.

In 1527, he created a map depicting Verrazzano's travels. This map had a major error (so-called "Verrazzano Sea" with his "Verrazzano Isthmus", as Giovanni did not accurately describe the North American continent. This error kept on showing up in maps for over a century. A copy of this 1527 map was destroyed during World War II.

There are numerous portolan charts, atlases and at least two other world maps made by Vesconte Maggiolo: one dated Genoa, 1531;Astengo, 2007, p. 73: 14: “Vesconte de maiollo ICcomposuit hanc cartam In Janua anno dominy 1531 die VIII novembri”. another kept at a public library in Treviso (in Italian), is dated Genoa, 1549.

Although he specialized in the mapping of the Mediterranean Sea, the Black Sea and the Aegean Sea, Maggiolo was the first to report in his atlas of 1548 the toponym of the South American river Rio de Amaxones.

Gallery

File:Maggiolo Italy as far as the mouth of the Tiber River, western Sicily, and the Adriatic coast.jpg, Italy, western Sicily and the Adriatic coast
File:Maggiolo North Africa, Europe, and part of Asia.jpg, North Africa, Europe and part of Asia
File:Maggiolo Africa, Asia, Europe, and the northeast extremity of the New World.jpg, Africa, Asia, Europe and part of the New World
File:Maggiolo Atlantic coast of Africa and Europe, the British Isles, and Iceland, including the Canary Islands, Madeira, and the Azores.jpg, Atlantic coast of Africa and Europe, the British Isles, and Iceland
File:Maggiolo Cosmographical planisphere, with Africa, Asia, and Europe in the center.jpg, ''Cosmographical planisphere'', with Africa, Asia, and Europe in the center
File:Maggiolo Dedication leaf and Map of the island of Corsica.jpg, Dedication leaf and map of Corsica
File:Maggiolo Greek Islands and the Aegean Sea.jpg, Greek Islands and the Aegean Sea
File:Maggiolo west coast of Africa from the Tropic of Cancer to 17⁰ south, including the Cape Verde Islands, and the Atlantic islands of São Tomé, Príncipe, and Annobón.jpg, West coast of Africa, including Cape Verde Islands, São Tomé, Príncipe, and Annobón
File:Maggiolo western Mediterranean.jpg, Western Mediterranean
File:Maggiolo Map of Western Hemisphere.tif, Western hemisphere

References

Notes

Bibliography
* ''Navigazione e carte nautiche nei secoli XIII-XVI'', Genova, SAGEP, 1983.
* Corradino Astengo, Der genuesische Kartograph V. M. und sein Werk, in ‘’Cartographica Helvetica’’, 1996, n. 13, pp. 9-17.
* Corradino Astengo, ''La cartografia nautica mediterranea dei secoli XVI e XVII'', Genova 2000, pp. 80-88 e 149-192.
* Corradino Astengo, "The Renaissance Chart Tradition in the Mediterranean", in ''The History of Cartography, Volume Three (Part 1): Cartography in the European Renaissance'', Edited by David Woodward, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 2007, pp. 174-262.
* Corradino Astengo, "Vesconte Maggiolo (alias Vesconte de Maiolo, Vesconte de Maiollo", in ''Cartografi in Liguria'' (secoli XIV-XIX) a cura di Massimo Quaini, Genova, Brigati, 2007, pp. 72–75.

External links

Map of the World by Viconte di Maiollo, 1527, 1905 facsimile
from the Old Maps Collection.

Portolan Chart, 1516
at The Huntington Library

Portolan atlas/Vesconte de Maiolo ciuis Janue conposuy, 1511
at the John Carter Brown Library.

{{DEFAULTSORT:Maggiolo
1478 births
Scientists from Genoa
16th-century Italian cartographers
16th-century Genoese people