The larger ones took up an entire pelt, preserving all of its characteristics and dimensions, i.e., a rectangular shape longer on one end (corresponding to the animal’s neck), where it forms the so-called linguetta or umbilicus the opposite end was generally attached to a stick around which it was rolled (this explains the tears now visible, caused by forcible attempts to detach it). Nautical charts were hand-drawn on sheep vellum. " There is little uncertainty, for instance, about the materials used and the techniques of execution. The medieval text is as follows īartolomeo Crescenzio: “Carta da Navigare”, which was later inserted into his Mediterranean Navigation and is now, “Nautica Mediterranea”, published in Rome, 16 by Bartolomeo Bonfadino. Professor Gaetano Ferro wrote of the methodology in two paragraphs, but it is theoretical and as will be seen is not practical. How this was achieved and copies made have puzzled historians even though there are medieval texts which purport to state the methodology. The Portolan chart was normally drawn on a single skin of leather, vellum or parchment. THE PORTOLAN CHART HISTORICAL CONTEXT MANUFACTURE But the magnetic and geographic differences were thought to be mis-understood, which can be shown to be fallacious, as the charts themselves prove. The earliest extant example dates to c1311. When this information was added to the map, the Portolan Chart was born. Then magnetic declination was discovered by the invention of the magnetic compass and thus its disagreement with true or geographic north. Then, those lists were transferred to a map not just any map but one which portrayed wind directions via a “Windrose”. But later 12th century lists encompassed the whole Mediterranean with distances and wind directions. These are just lists of ports, distances, obstacles etc. The Portolano or list of sailing directions had been known for centuries, with two of the oldest being “The Periplus of the Erythrean Sea”, 1st C AD and the maritime section of the “Itinerarium Antonini,” 3rd C AD. In the late 13th or early 14th century a new phenomena appeared around the Mediterranean Sea, the Portolan Chart.
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