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Portolan Chart of the Pacific Ocean

Portolan Chart of the Pacific Ocean – Circulo Cientifico – Cod. Guelf. 103, Aug. 2 – Herzog August Bibliothek (Wolfenbüttel, Germany)

Spain — 16th century

Not Asia, but America: A fascinating cartographic testimony to the journey across the Isthmus of Panama led by Vasco Núñez de Balboa and the proof of Columbus' great geographical error

  1. When Christopher Columbus landed on the American continent, he assumed that he had found India and thus the Asian continent

  2. In 1500, based on the flora and fauna, Amerigo Vespucci hypothesized that it was a continent of its own, unknown in Europe until then

  3. Vasco Núñez de Balboa crossed the Isthmus of Panama in 1513 with several hundred men and with the help of locals and was able to prove this assumption

Portolan Chart of the Pacific Ocean

Cod. Guelf. 103, Aug. 2 Herzog August Bibliothek (Wolfenbüttel, Germany)
Portolan Chart of the Pacific Ocean – Circulo Cientifico – Cod. Guelf. 103, Aug. 2 – Herzog August Bibliothek (Wolfenbüttel, Germany)
Portolan Chart of the Pacific Ocean – Circulo Cientifico – Cod. Guelf. 103, Aug. 2 – Herzog August Bibliothek (Wolfenbüttel, Germany) Copyright Photos: Ziereis Facsimiles
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Description
Portolan Chart of the Pacific Ocean

On September 25, 1513, Vasco Núñez de Balboa (1475–1519) was the first European to set eyes on the Pacific Ocean. With the previous, brutal and devastating crossing of the Central American isthmus, which today is called Panama, he proved Amerigo Vespucci's (1454–1512) assumption that the islands and lands in the west, still largely unknown to Europeans, were not – as initially assumed – parts of Asia, but rather a separate continent between Europe and Asia, between the Atlantic and the Pacific: America. The Portolan Chart of the Pacific Ocean in the Herzog August Library is an outstanding testimony to this finding. It represents part of the South American Atlantic coastline, the most important islands in the Gulf of Mexico and, above all, large parts of the Atlantic and Pacific coastlines of Central America, especially Panama. An inscription also makes an explicit reference to Balboa's expedition, which was undertaken on behalf of King Ferdinand II of Aragón (1452–1516).

Codicology

Alternative Titles
Portolankarte des Pazifischen Ozeans
Size / Format
1 map / 72.0 × 95.0 cm
Origin
Spain
Date
16th century
Language
Latin
Illustrations
Polychrome, cartographic illuminations
Content
Map of Central America and parts of South America
Available facsimile editions:
Portolan Chart of the Pacific Ocean – Circulo Cientifico – Cod. Guelf. 103, Aug. 2 – Herzog August Bibliothek (Wolfenbüttel, Germany)
#1 Portulano del océano parcifico
Circulo Cientifico – Madrid
Facsimile Editions
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