Portolan Chart 6 by Giorgio Sideri Known as Calapodà

Here we have a signature work by the Cretan cartographer Giorgio Sideri (active 1537–65), commonly known as Calapodà, which is dated 1550 and stored in the Correr Museum Library in Venice as Portolano 6. The large parchment map is a splendid watercolor depicting the known world from the Isthmus of Panama in the West to the Caspian Sea and Arabian Peninsula in the East, and from the Gulf of Bothnia in the northernmost Baltic Sea to South America’s Rio de la Plata. The lines and grid are those of a sea chart, but there is a scale for latitude and longitude in addition to artful depictions of rivers and mountains. The names of many cities, regions, and kingdoms are recorded, including those found in the interior of the continents. The portolan chart gives us a taste of the Age of Exploration and of the thalassocracy or “sea empire” of the Republic of Venice. As a cartographer, Calapodà’s map-making skills would have been invaluable to Venice’s mercantile economy and the protection and control of its far flung maritime empire, which is presented here with delicate artistry.