''La Cartografía Mallorquina'' ('' Majorcan Cartography '') is a book of essays on the

Majorca Mallorca, or Majorca, is the largest of the Balearic Islands, which are part of Spain, and the List of islands in the Mediterranean#By area, seventh largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. The capital of the island, Palma, Majorca, Palma, i ...

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

s written by Professor

Julio Rey Pastor Julio Rey Pastor (14 August 1888 – 21 February 1962) was a Spanish mathematician and historian of science. Biography Julio Rey Pastor studied high school in his hometown, and began his studies in Sciences in Vitoria. He moved to the Universi ...

with the collaboration of Ernesto García Camarero. It is a scholarly essay, a key element in the study of portolans, especially those made by Majorcans as half of the book is devoted to the study of more than 400 Majorcan portolans existing worldwide.

Style of the Majorcan School

Rey Pastor before explaining how to identify the works of this school for its unmistakable traits, he says: ''".. In the monumental Periplus of the unsurpassed

Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld Nils Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld (; 18 November 183212 August 1901) was a Finland-Swedish aristocrat, geologist, mineralogist and Arctic explorer. He was a member of the noble Nordenskiöld family of scientists and held the title of a friherre (ba ...

, I saw with pleasant surprise that the most varicoloured parchments, ornamented with fabulous effigies of monarchs and naive legends, '' written in Catalan '' with lots of information, physical, biological and political, of each region, they originate in Majorca -in an unknown date-, being designated as "catalan maps"... Dr. Julio in his book, gives an explanation of why no Spanish scholar had touched the subject, referring to the unjust appropriation of some portolans by some Italian scholars: "Our geographers, insufficiently armed, they stayed timidly neutral; and the militant vindicator of Spanish science, Dr. Gumersindo Laverde -who had organized a phalanx defending the flag hoisted by the young scholar

Menéndez y Pelayo Menéndez or Menendez is a Spanish name of Germanic origin. In English, the name is often spelled without the diacritic. A shorter form sharing the same root is Mendez. Menéndez or Menendez may refer to: People named Menéndez or Menendez * A ...

-, they remained silent, for the great scholar had forgotten this chapter of the medieval science ".. Rey Pastor -a great mathematician and lover of the cartography- entered into this profile, in fact cartographers were apart from being artists they had to master mathematics -at least some of them- as the projection of the sphere on a plane it needs them. Julio Rey Pastor, was able to make the point defending the Catalan authorship of many Majorcan portolans against both, the Portuguese scholars, and some Italian "scholars", and in fact he could not be more impartial, for he was not Catalan, he was from

La Rioja La Rioja () is an autonomous communities in Spain, autonomous community and provinces of Spain, province in Spain, in the north of the Iberian Peninsula. Its capital is Logroño. Other List of municipalities in La Rioja, cities and towns in the ...

. * From the signature "Petrus Rosselli me fecit ab Majoricarum Insulae". (.."de arte beccaria".. they misinterpreted it as a student of Beccaria) * From Angelino Dulcert's signature some Italians claimed that Dulcert was "Dalorto" misspelled..

Influence on Portuguese map makers

Rey Pastor says.. "..That Jehuda Cresques (c. 1415) acted as founder and director of the Escola de Sagres, was known to historians for over a century, with doubts on which "mestre Jacome" from Majorca corresponded to the "mestre Jacome" contracted by Prince Henry, (although he was the only cartographer with that name).. But it's unforgivable that some scholars arrived to the point (based in a high cartographic ignorance), to attribute the invention of portolans to the school of the Infant, if not to him personally .. but how could that make sense, being the school founded by the emigrated Cresques (about 1400), when at his seventies he was tired of manufacturing planispheres, during half a century, for the insatiable

Peter the Ceremonious Peter IV (Catalan: ''Pere IV d'Aragó;'' Aragonese; ''Pero IV d'Aragón;'' 5 September 1319 – 6 January 1387), called the Ceremonious (Catalan: ''El Cerimoniós''; Aragonese: ''el Ceremonioso''), was from 1336 until his death the king of ...

and for his son, the also map-maniac DON JOAN.. On top of that one should not forget to include the testimony of Pacheco Pereira...: And he continues.. It's unforgivable as well, that those scholars, could dare to write on the subject without reading

João de Barros João de Barros (; 1496 – 20 October 1570), nicknamed the "Portuguese Livy", is one of the first great Portuguese historians, most famous for his (''Decades of Asia''), a history of the Portuguese in India, Asia, and southeast Africa. Early y ...

, which clearly states: ''"..mándou vir da ilha de Mallorca um mestre Jacome, hornera mui douto na arte de navegar, que fasia e instrumentos náuticos e que Ihe custou muito pelo trazer a este reino para ensinar sua sciencia aos officiaes portuguezes d'aquella mester.."''

References

External links

Portolan charts from S.XIII to S.XVI - Additions, Corrections, Updates

elgranerocomun.net (pdf1)

elgranerocomun.net (pdf2)

dialnet.unirioja.es (pdf)

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cartografia Mallorquina 1960 non-fiction books Nautical reference works Navigation Sailing books Essay collections

Style of the Majorcan School

Influence on Portuguese map makers

See also

References

External links