This manuscript was once called the 'Harisse 

' because in the nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries it was within the collection Henry Harrisse (1829–1910), who in 1892 published a survey of the works of Agnese in his 'Discovery of North America'. This map however is not within this publication.

This example of the atlas was also not recorded in the census of Agnese portolans published by Henry Wagner in 1931, nor in Pflederer's census of 2009 (although added to its corrigenda in 2011). Using Wagner's classification system, which was based on cartographic details, this atlas would probably belong to Type 3-'A', 'post Californian', but with the new chart of Scotland and the land map of Scandinavia.

This atlas includes thirteen maps: beginning with a map of the world, separated into three charts. The fourth chart encompasses Northwest Europe, while the fifth covers Iberia and North Africa. The next three (charts six, seven and eight) map the Mediterranean; charts nine and ten the Black, Marmara and Aegean Seas. Chart eleven shows a colourful Scandinavia an antiqued manuscript style - an informed artistic decision and a nod to earlier decadent works. The last two maps to feature in the book are an oval world map and a Ptolemaic world map. 

Following the thirteen charts and maps, there is a page of Latin text explaining the understanding of the ancients. For example, it presents an estimate of the length of a degree of latitude at about fifty-seven miles and states that if there are 360 degrees in a great circle, then the circumference of the Earth must be 20,400 miles. Using a good estimate for the mathematical constant ‘π’, the text then calculates the diameter of the Earth and finally the distance from the surface to the centre of the Earth. There is also a table of cosmographical distances and diameters of celestial bodies, for example, the distance from the centre of the Earth to the planets. 

The nine sea charts each include a small thirty-two-point compass rose set into the lower board of the atlas, rendered in gold and coloured ink, a distinctive feature of numerous atlases signed by or attributed to Agnese. There is also a scale bar in the distinctive Agnese style in the corners of the nine sea charts. The land maps of Scandinavia, the land map of Northern Europe, the oval world map, and the hemispherical maps of Europe, Africa, and Asia do not feature compass roses. 

The Sunderland Collection

This exquisite portolan atlas illuminated on vellum is one of the jewels of The Sunderland Collection. In its original binding, it contains a delicately drawn diagram of the zodiac, thirteen detail-rich double-page maps, and a thirty-two-point compass inset into the lower board. It was created by Battista Agnese, a luxury mapmaker who produced highly prized and beautifully decorated manuscript atlases for elite patrons, including Emperor Charles V, Phillip II of Spain, and Henry VIII of England.

This manuscript has its own distinguished provenance from the collection of the eminent cartographic historian Henry Harisse (1829–1910). Harisse was said to have inscribed the end papers of each copy he encountered, in order to confirm its authenticity.

During the late fifteenth century, portolan maps began to lose their function as a navigational tools and instead were produced as luxury works of art. Astonishingly beautiful artefacts, these maps are often embellished in gold and silver, and rich in both ornament and detail. The atlases by Battista Agnese are extremely lavish, each display his distinctive style. He signed twenty-five atlases and is possibly the author of an additional fifty-two. While Agnese's mostly produced atlases, there is also evidence that he produced a few individual charts. Among the maps included in this atlas are tables of the declination of the sun, an image of an armillary sphere, a two-page zodiacal diagram, as well as a short treatise in Latin on cosmographical dimensions.

Despite the lack of any supporting documentary evidence, it is generally accepted that, rather than working on his own, Agnese must have operated a specialist studio in Venice in order to achieve his high cartographic output. It is easy to imagine a production process in which one person prepared the sheets of vellum, another drew the coastal outlines, another entered the place names, and so on.

World map with windheads

Compass Rose

Armillary Sphere

Zodiac

Pacific Ocean

Atlantic Ocean

Indian Ocean

Europe

Iberia

Western Mediterranean 

Italy 

Eastern Mediterranean 

Black Sea

Aegean 

Scandinavia 

The ancient known world

Compass embedded in cover

This magnificent atlas is a previously unrecorded example of the work of Battista Agnese; and an exquisitely bound manuscript atlas. The atlas remains in its original binding and codicological order. These exquisite maps are uniform to most extant Agnese atlases in both appearance of maps and colouring, and the work also includes a table of the declination of the sun, an armillary sphere, and a circular zodiacal calendar. A small thirty-two-point compass rose has been set into the lower board of the atlas, rendered in gold and coloured ink, a distinctive feature of numerous atlases signed by or attributed to Agnese.

Portolan Atlas by Agnese