Bookmark

Diogo Ribeiro’s 815 x 2140 mm measuring nautical worldmap manuscript of 1525 – as a present of Emperor Charles V to Count Baldassarre Castiglioni the so-called Castiglioni Planisphere Map – as not least a reflection of the

first  circumnavigation

by Magellan (Fernão de Magalheas) and his crew resp. (1519-1522) after the account

of Antonio Pigafetta as one of the 18 (of 270) survivors and the specially North American reconnaissances of the deserting crew member Esteban Gómez (Estevão Gómes) going on to operate on his own and returning to Spain in 1521. Here then its spectacular complete

Ribeiro, Diogo (also Diego Ribero, Rivero, Robeiro, d. 1533). Carta del navegare universalissima et diligentissima (Planisfero Castiglioni). Manuscript drawn on four sheets of vellum joined together. 1525. 815 x 2140 mm. FACSIMILE on paper IN ORIGINAL SIZE + ORIGINAL COLOR/TONE of the back, too, rolled up in trapeziform red presentation-box with stamped title + colored wind rose + commentary volume (large 8vo.) with hist.-scientific analysis in Italian along with English summary (on request in Spanish) + transcriptions by Ernesto Milano + Annalisa Battini. 2001/02.

One  of  the  worldwide  only  499  numbered + certificated  copies .

IMAGO MUNDI XI, 53-55 + XVI, 76-83 (Armando Cortesão, Note on the Castiglioni planisphere with folded plate as the first complete reproduction after that only one detail pictured by Vittorio Bellio in 1892 + L. A. Vigneras, The Cartographer Diogo Ribeiro; 1954 + 1962 resp. – See also I.M. XXIII, 77-79 (G. Furlong, A Map of Juan Sebastián del Cano, 1969).

The  picture  of  the  world  of  those  early  days

in search of new, say shorter sea-routes avoiding the Cape of Good Hope to especially the Moluccas discovered in 1512 by the Portugueses as the highly desired spice caves of the Old World while the American eastcoast was revealed from voyage to voyage.

Spanish cartographic catchment basin of all these new facts + dates at the service of the oversea interests was the Padrón Real as continously actualized standard map established in 1508 by Fernando el Catolico within the Casa Contratación founded in 1503 by Isabel la Catolica as a cosmographic and administrative center. In the last analysis Ribeiro’s map corresponds with the contents of that map.

Ribeiro – “one of the most famous of the pilots-major of Castille” (Furlong) – , like Magellan a born Portuguese at the Spanish service (since 1518/19) “seems to have taken to the sea at an early age and to have made several voyages to India as a pilot. He is reported to have sailed with Pero Affonso d’Aguiar who served as a captain in the armada of Vasco da Gama (1502)” (Vigneras). Since 1523 he has been a first cosmographer to the Casa Contratación. And in 1524 he has been called in as a counselor to the Spanish delegation treating controversally for the Moluccas with the Portugueses in Vitoria as the current residence of Charles V. For so disastrously the Magallan expedition also seemed to have finished, so the one and only returned Pigafetta ship has brought with such a fullness of smelling good richness encouraging to a new expedition. What not left the Portugueses cold. Interesting in this connection, however, only what a low judgment the Portuguese delegates seem to have had of their Spanish colleagues – except Ribeiro (“Their pilots are without any credit except Ribero”, so Francisco de Mello to his king Joáo III). And specifically for the American NE coast de Oviedo relied also on Ribeiro’s map in his 1535 Historia General de las Indias, for “he was given much credit in his profession”. So his present worldmap shows then also

In August 1525 the latter had returned back from a new voyage on that he otherwise had missed its mark as well the searched NW passage as the reaching of the Spice Islands. That the 1525 first one of the Ribeiro maps stems from this himself and not from assistants reveals “the spelling of some of the place names (having) a marked Portuguese flavour”. Aside from several wind-roses enriched with nautical tools little flags and coastlines in different colors document the partitioning of the new discoveries between Spain + Portugal.

According to tradition the map was donated by Charles V on the occasion of his marriage to Isabel of Portugal in 1526 to the Mantua count Baldassarre Castiglione/i (statesman + author, temporary apostolic nuncio at the service of pope Clemente VII to the Imperial Court in Spain; 1478-1529). As he generally was high in Charles’ favor up to the transfer of the rich diocese of Avila. His lasting merit, however, is his famous Libro del cortegiano “a description of the ideal of a courtier composed in the form of a conversation (Venice 1528), a masterwork of elegant and delicate prose” (Meyers Convers.-Lex., 4^th ed., III, 855/I).

Following to the 1525 map here the Ribeiro maps in Florence (the so-called Salviati map, possibly 1526 and maybe a work by Nuño Garcia Torreño, color ills. Bagrow-Skelton, Meister der Kartographie, 1951, pp. 178/79), the Weimar one of 1527 (B.-Sk. pl. LXIV), two from 1529 (Vatican + Weimar, one of which reproduced in facsimile in 1887) and the 1530 one in Wolfenbüttel. From 1529 also an Africa map followed by one of America in 1532.

Consciously by the way Ribeiro saw himself as maker of globes and nautical instruments. Closing zenith of these professions was the invention of a metal pump for ships of only twice weight, but sixfold power compared with those in use salvaging ship + crew at very rough weather in the Atlantic during its final test in practice. But then Ribeiro, however, had already passed away two months before. And already in 1534 “Vicente Barroso invented wooden pumps which were just as efficient and considerably cheaper than the metal ones” (Vigneras).

On Ribeiro see also Enciclopedia vniversal illvstrada Europeo-americana, 1905-1964, LI, 349 + Grande Enciclopédia portuguesa e brasileira, 1955-1959, XXV,  584. – Here then, once more,

his  1525  monumental  first  sea  planisphere  in  its  original  size  for  the  first  time

and  additionally  unfolded  rolled  up  in  a  box .

Offer no. 28,881 / EUR  1070. / export price EUR  1017. (c. US$ 1427.) + shipping