Madrid Map of the Mediterranean Sea - Mss. 12.680

This portolan chart of the Mediterranean region is one of the highlights of the collection of nautical maps held by the Biblioteca Nacional de España. Despite its high cartographic and artistic quality, much about its origins remains unclear to this day. It is not known who created it or for whom. Its execution and the large coat of arms dominating the Iberian Peninsula suggest that it is a 16th-century work. The coat of arms forms the body of a two-headed, crowned eagle and belongs to one of the Spanish Habsburg kings of the time, probably Philip II (1527–1598) or one of his successors. Particularly noteworthy is the rich illumination of the map with various powerful pigments. These not only make the 16 wind roses eye-catching, but also the detailed coastlines of the Mediterranean and Black Seas, whose different sections are differentiated by different colored contours. The southeastern corner of the map also shows two features that do not correspond to the accuracy of the rest of the work: Golgotha appears as a giant rock with three enormous crosses, the middle one, associated with Christ, being golden, while the Red Sea appears as a red-contoured, organic shape.