The Sunderland Collection

This work was likely commissioned by Chiara da Mosto.

The maps in this atlas, depicting most of the then known world, bear a very high degree of similarity to Giacomo Gastaldi's wall world map of c.1561–1562, itself extremely rare, with the only institutional example known being at the British Library. The depiction in particular of the theory of the north-west passage, with the ‘Streto di Anian’ ('Strait of Anian') balancing the Straits of Magellan, and the illustration of the western seaboard of North America is quite remarkable. Gastaldi's map was published in Venice, so it seems likely that Vicus - and the da Mosto family - had access to it.

There are seven charts in this atlas. The first depicts the Pacific Ocean, showing the west coast of North America, California as a peninsula, the Bering Straits, north-eastern Siberia and China, Japan, the Philippine Islands, the Moluccan Islands, and the southern continent ‘Terra Incognita’.

The second chart represents the Americas, showing the whole of South America, the Straits of Magellan and the southern land of 'Tera del Fu[e]go', the Isthmus of Panama, Gulf of Mexico and Central America, Yucatan as a peninsula, the West Indies, and the eastern coastline of North America.

The third chart illustrates the Indian Ocean, showing the Horn of Africa, Madagascar, the Arabian Peninsula, Persian Gulf, India, Bay of Bengal, the Malay Peninsula, Southeast Asia, the South China Sea, the Indonesian archipelago, and the southern continent 'Ter[r]a d'Vista.'

Southern Africa is covered in the fourth chart, showing the western seaboard from São Tomé at the equator (this depicted with a red and black dotted line), Cape of Good Hope and a small portion of the continent's east coast.

The fifth chart is Western Africa, which is the most magnificent chart in the atlas, highly decorated with large arms of the Da Mosto family in the Atlantic Ocean, showing the coastline explored by Alvise da Cadamosto.

The sixth chart is the Mediterranean and the Black Sea, which is finished to a higher degree than the other maps, with a large perspective view of Piazza San Marco symbolising Venice.

The last chart is Western Europe, showing the British Isles with Great Britain depicted as two separate islands with England and Scotland joined by a bridge, Ireland with the mythical island of 'Brasil' off its western coast, the Low Countries, France, the Iberian Peninsula, part of North Africa, and the Azores (with another fictional island named 'Brasil'). A large coat of arms of Philip II of Spain (who was also Philip I of Portugal) adorns the Iberian Peninsula.

This exquisite portolan atlas was commissioned by the da Mosto family of Venice, descendants of the great explorer Alvise da Cadamosto (c.1428–1483). Cadamosto was a Venetian trader who ‘discovered’ the Cape Verde Islands and described the Canary Islands and the Senegambia-Geba region. The artist of this atlas, Johannes Maria Vicus, was hitherto unknown; he has signed and dated the first chart. The volume comprises fourteen vellum leaves, containing seven portolan charts executed in colour and luxuriously heightened with silver and gold. The maps have been mounted on nineteenth-century paper, and the binding is from the same period.

Portolan atlases are some of the rarest and most sought-after of all early cartographic works of art. Often produced as singular documents in manuscript form, portolan charts are fundamental witnesses to early maritime exploration. This atlas is especially rare, depicting the entire world rather than the typical focus on the Mediterranean and Western Europe.

This highly decorative portolan atlas was commissioned by the da Mosto family in celebration of their most illustrious ancestor, Alvise da Cadamosto, a Venetian under the patronage of Portugal's Prince Henry the Navigator, who 'discovered' the Cape Verde Islands, described the Canary Islands, and the Senegambia-Geba region, in his posthumously published narrative of 1507. He was also the first recorded European to go far enough south to describe the Southern Cross. This would explain the dramatic prominence of the da Mosto arms on chart five which shows the coastline of West Africa.

Portolan chart of the Mediterrean Sea

Portolan chart of Southeast Asia showing China and Japan

Portolan chart of South America 

Portolan chart of the Indian Ocean showing India and the edge of China

Portolan chart of the Atlantic Ocean, Equator, and South Africa

Portolan chart of the Atlantic Ocean and North Africa

Portolan chart of the North Atlantic, showing England, Spain and Ireland 

This is a magnificent and extremely rare portolan world atlas, with an exceptional range of maps of outstanding beauty. It was commissioned by the distinguished da Mosto family of Venice, who are descended from one of the greatest explorers of the Age of European Exploration, Alvise da Cadamosto (1432–1488), from a hitherto unknown artist, Johannes Maria Vicus, signed and dated by him on the first chart. The Sunderland Collection example was once owned by the distinguished libraries of Joseph Brooks Yates, his grandson Henry Yates Thompson, and by donation from him, to the Athenaeum Library in Liverpool.