Portolan Map Possibilities

[Linda]

That's a really poor representation of the Black Sea, and that might be just what we should expect. Historically, early in the reign of Philip the Good of Burgundy, an emissary was sent from the Netherlands, up to the Hanseatic League. He traveled on to Russia, then down river to the Black Sea, into the Mediterranean and back to Dijon. He was mentioned in Richard Vaughan's Philip the Good. Imagine making that journey and mapping that terrain when so much was second-hand information. That's why the boundaries are drawn with nebuly lines, because it was known and needed to be indicated that these boundaries were very imprecise. If all he did was sail from Kaffa to Constantinople, what would he know of the shape of the shoreline? Only what he was told.

Any indication that the nymphs are personifications of the major cities? Weren't they mostly on the southern shore?

Thanks for the reply! I agree, it is likely the worst of the early portolan chart Black Seas.

Here are others, pretty much all completely recognizable. 


Here is some more detail on some emmisaries of Philip the Good. You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

They mostly went by land, it appears, they used the rivalry between Venice and Genoa as an excuse to have avoided going by sea. 
By the way, if that sounds like a lot of travel, my uncle has made biking expeditions from Amsterdam to Prague, another to Constance (He was aiming for Rome but broke his leg and had to go home) and is planning other such expeditions (he is over 70).

But yes, in those times they certainly did not have the resources we do now to know where they were going. 

The nebuly lines, I have had a couple of connections come up, yours could be one, another is alignment with the Tabula Peutingeriana, although all water is so, not just the Black Sea.

Another is this particular rendition in a portolan chart, unfortunately it is Anonymous, but known to have been made in Genoa. It has a likeness to the Cortona in being drawn too large in proportion to the rest. I don't know, could be a clue in there somewhere. Others from Genoa have used this bubbly sort of nebuly style also.
 
This might be inherent in the fact that coastlines are not drawn to life, they are instead connected dots of long distance connections between places. They have found there are more errors and discrepancies in short distance notations than in the long ones (which conversely one would think would be easier to get wrong). So the nebulosity might be a commentary on this phenomenon, or a result of it. 

Just found this comparison of the Cortona chart and data points from Lo Conpasso da Navegare, a portolan from c. 1250 from which many have created charts and maps. It would seem this also fits with the vms portrayal of the Black Sea. But that includes a lot of stuff back in, in terms of figuring out what the vms creators had seen in particular.



In terms of the nymphs, they could well align with cities. Following the Genoa track it would seem there are quite a few likenesses to be had with their situations.



I also think that f81 precedes f82 in the original ordering as well as the current one. You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. is a backwards Azov, mirror image in both page placement and direction of drawing, i think partially as obfuscation and partially as a narrative, as in, 'go around and come back here', before the next bifolio starts the Asia Africa tour with the Caspian Sea on f75. F81r is the second half of a larger drawing that includes f78v, if you ignore the non literal streams and attach the two smaller bodies to the larger one, you get something like the Sea of Marmora, note how in the drawings above, that is how it is drawn also, and by association, it references Constantinople, and puts it at the centerfold of the world.  F78r depicts the two bays in Lesbos, hey look, it is another established Genoan holding, near the entrance to the Sea of Marmora. It is all contiguous.