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Add MS 5415 A
- Record Id:
- 040-003441754
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 032-003441753
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100075949233.0x00010d
- LARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100165150929.0x000001
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Add MS 5415 A
- Title:
-
The Queen Mary Atlas
- Scope & Content:
-
This portolan or atlas consists of three tables and nine large ornamented maps, executed by the Portuguese cartographer Diogo Homem (b. 1521, d. 1576) between 1555 and 1559. The manuscript is thought to have been made for King Philip II of Spain (r. 1556–98), possibly as a gift from Queen Mary I of England (r. 1553–1558), though it was not completed until after her death.
The atlas's twelve maps and tables span each verso and its facing recto.
Contents:
f. 2r: Lunar and solar calendars, represented in a large cosmographical wheel.
f. 4r: Tables of solar declination, used to establish the latitude of a ship at sea.
f. 6r: A zonal map of the world, accompanied by representations of the classical winds.
f. 8r: A map of the world, accompanied by a Latin inscription around its border that reads ‘Universalis mundi figura atque navigationum orbis terrarium scitus’ (Form of the whole word and survey of the navigation of the lands of the Earth). Another inscription in the lower right section of the map reads ‘Diegus Homem cosmographus fecit hoc opus anno salutis 1558’ (Diego Homem, cosmographer, made this work in the year of salvation 1558).
f. 10r: A map of the British Isles and the western coasts of Europe, with part of Belgium, Spain and Portugal, and the northern coast of Africa. The arms of Spain, joined with England, have been defaced.
f. 12r: A map of the coasts of the Western Mediterranean.
f. 14r: A map of the Southern Atlantic, showing the western coast of Africa from the St John River to the Cape, with the eastern coast of South America, from the Amazon river to the river Plate.
f. 16r: A map of the eastern coast of Africa, the Red Sea, the Persian Gulf, and the coast of India to Kanyakumari and Sri Lanka.
f. 18r: A map of the East Indies.
f. 20r: A map of the Northern Atlantic, with the eastern coast of North America, the West India Islands, and the westernmost coasts of Europe and Africa southward to Cape Rosso.
f. 22r: A map of the Eastern Pacific and the western coastlines of North and South America.
f. 24r: A map of the northern and eastern coasts of South America, with parts of the West Indies.
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Additional Manuscripts
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-003441753
040-003441754 - Is part of:
- Add MS 5415 A-I : Collection of maps, charts and plans
Add MS 5415 A : The Queen Mary Atlas - Hierarchy:
- 032-003441753[0001]/040-003441754
- Container:
- View / search within Archive / Collection: Add MS 5415 A-I
- Record Type (Level):
- File
- Extent:
-
1 volume
- Digitised Content:
- http://access.bl.uk/item/viewer/ark:/81055/vdc_100165150929.0x000001 (digital images currently unavailable)
- Thumbnail:
-
- Languages:
- Latin
- Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 1550
- End Date:
- 1559
- Date Range:
- c 1555-1559
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
-
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- User Conditions:
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Materials: Parchment.
Dimensions: 580 x 800 mm.
Foliation: ff. 24 (+ 4 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the beginning and + 4 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the end).
Script: Italic.
Binding: Post-1600. British Library in-house (yellow ochre cloth with a leather spine and corners).
- Custodial History:
-
Origin: England (?).
Provenance:
Diogo Homem (b. 1521, d. 1576), 1558: inscribed '‘Diegus Homem cosmographus fecit hoc opus anno salutis 1558’ (The cosmographer Diogo Homem made this work in the year 1558).
Hans Sloane (b. 1660, d. 1753): thought to have been once part of his collection; became part of the British Museum's collection in 1790.
- Publications:
-
Catalogue of the Manuscript Maps, Charts, and Plans, and of the Topographical Drawings in the British Museum (British Museum: Department of MSS, 1844), I, p. 27.
Armando Cortesão and Avelino Teixeira da Mota, Portugaliae Monumenta Cartographica, 6 vols (Lisbon: Comissão Executiva do V Centenario da morte do Infante D. Henrique, 1958-63), II.
Prince Henry the Navigator and Portuguese Maritime Enterprise: Catalogue of an Exhibition at the British Museum, September-October 1960 (London: The British Museum, 1960).
Helen Wallis, 'The Map Collections of the British Museum Library', in Helen Wallis and Sarah Tyacke, My Head is a Map (London: Francis Edwards and Carta Press, 1973), 2-20.
Helen Wallis, 'The Royal Map Collections of England', Centro de Estudios de Cartografia Antiga 141 (Coimbra: Junta de Investigacoes de Ultramar, 1981), 461-8.
Peter Barber, 'The Evesham World Map: A Late Medieval English View of God and the World', Imago Mundi 47 (1995), 13-33 (p. 32, n. 55).
Geoffrey Parker, 'Philip II, Maps and Power', in Empire, War and Faith in Early Modern Europe (London: Penguin, 2002), 96-121.
The Queen Mary Atlas, Facsimile with Commentary by Peter Barber (London: Folio Society, 2005).
Kate Lowe,''Representing' Africa: Ambassadors and Princes from Christian Africa to Renaissance Italy and Portugal, 1402-1608', Transactions of the Royal Historical Society (2007), 101-28.
Alexander Samson, 'Culture under Mary I and Philip', in The Birth of a Queen: Essays on the Quincentenary of Mary I, ed. by Sarah Duncan and Valerie Schutte (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2016), 155-178.
Lydia Towns, 'The Opening of the Atlantic World: England's Transatlantic Interests during the Reign of Henry VIII' (unpublished PhD Dissertation, University of Texas at Arlington, 2019).
- Exhibitions:
- Gold, British Library, London, 20 May 2022 - 2 October 2022
- Material Type:
- Maps and Plans
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)