Pietro Vesconte

Pietro Vesconte

Image of a cartographer, assumed to be Pietro Vesconte himself, from the 1318 Vesconte atlas (Museo Correr, Venice)

Image of a cartographer, assumed to be Pietro Vesconte himself, from the 1318 Vesconte atlas (Museo Correr, Venice)
Born Genoa
Occupation Italian cartographer

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 the first professional mapmaker to sign and date his works regularly.[1]

Although Vesconte was born in Genoa, he produced much of his work in Venice. He was active between 1310 and 1330,[1] producing numerous maps. His nautical charts are among the earliest to map the Mediterraean and Black Sea regions accurately. He also produced progressively more accurate depictions of the coastlines of northern Europe, in particular that of Britain and, to a lesser extent, Ireland.

Pietro Vesconte's 1311 portolan chart of the east Mediterranean is the oldest signed and dated nautical chart that survives from the medieval period.[2] He is also the author of at least four signed multi-sheet atlases (1313, 1318a, 1318b, c. 1321), where the various sheets can be combined into a single nautical chart. There is also an atlas (1321) and a solitary portolan chart (1327) signed by "Perrino Vesconte", assumed to be either Pietro himself or possibly a younger relative member of his family using a diminutive form of 'Pietro'.[1] The image of a mapmaker at work, which appears in a Vesconte atlas of 1318, may depict the chartmaker himself.[3]

Pietro Vesconti brought his experience as a maker of portolans to bear on the mappa mundi (circular world map) he produced, which introduced a previously unheard of accuracy to the genre.[1] He provided a world map, nautical atlas, a map of the Holy Land and plan of Acre and Jerusalem for inclusion in Marino Sanuto's Liber secretorum fidelium cruces, a work which aimed to encourage a new crusade.[3] There are three known copies of Sanuto's Liber (c. 1320–21, c. 1321, c. 1325) that include Vesconte's maps, only the first of which is signed; the latter two are confidently assumed to have been done by him, or at least under his direction.

Works by or attributed to Vesconte

The following works have been signed or attributed to Pietro Vesconte.[4]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 "Slide #228F Monograph". henry-davis.com. Retrieved 2015-04-03.
  2. ↑ Allen, R. (2004). Eastward Bound: Travel and Travellers, 1050-1550. Manchester University Press. p. 137. ISBN 9780719066917. Retrieved 2015-04-03.
  3. 1 2 Harley, J.B.; Woodward, D. (1987). The History of Cartography: Cartography in prehistoric, ancient, and medieval Europe and the Mediterranean. 1. University of Chicago Press. pp. 2–432. ISBN 9780226316338. Retrieved 2015-04-03.
  4. ↑ Information organized by Tony Campbell, "Census of pre-sixteenth-century portolan charts" at maphistory.info, last visited June 16, 2011
  5. ↑ Vesconte's 1313 Atlas can be found online at 1313 Vesconte Atlas at Gallica, BNF
  6. ↑ The signature reads Perinus Vessconte d’Janua fecit istam tabula Anno dni Mccc xxj in Venecia. A copy of the 1321 atlas can be found online at 1321 Perrino Vesconte atlas at Netzwerk von Bibliotheken und Informationsstellen in der Schweiz (NEBIS, Switzerland)
  7. ↑ The signature reads Perrinus Vessconte fecit istam cartam Anno dhi M ccc xxvii in Veneciis (Cortesão, 1969: p.38)
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