Thursday, November 26, 2015

The Silk Road - The Catalan Atlas

Source: Above legend: The caravan of the Polo brothers left the Empire of Sarra to go to Catayo, across the Great Desert (Sarai, on the Edil [Volga], was the capital of the Kipchak Tartars, from which the Polos had set out about 1262.
 
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Caravane_sur_la_Route_de_la_soie_-_Atlas_catalan.jpg

This 'atlas' was the work of Abraham Cresques who worked in Majorca at the end of the 14th century and was commissioned by Charles V of France at a time when the reputation of the Catalan chart makers was at its peak. Considered the best Majorcan mapmaker of the time: Abraham Cresques.contained the latest information on Asia and China and has subsequently been called "the most complete picture of geographical knowledge as it stood in the later Middle Ages."

 

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