Cantino planisphere (1502)

This is the earliest surviving map showing Portuguese geographic discoveries in the east and west. It is named after Alberto Cantino, an agent for the Duke of Ferrara, who successfully smuggled it from Portugal to Italy in 1502. Alberto Cantino, who was sent to Portugal by the Ercole I d'Este, Duke of Ferrara, with the formal intention of horse trading, while secretly collecting information on the Portuguese Discoveries. Cantino’s diligence is shown in two of his letters to the Duke, dated from 17th and 18 October 1501, where he describes, amongst other things, hearing Gaspar Corte-Real detailing his latest voyage to Newfoundland (Terra Nova) to King Manuel I of Portugal.

The Cantino planisphere is the earliest extant example of the so-called latitude chart, which was developed following the introduction of astronomical navigation, during the second half of the fifteenth century. Contrarily to the portolan charts of the Mediterranean, which were constructed on the basis of magnetic courses and estimated distances between places, in the latitude chart places were represented according to their latitudes. In the Cantino planisphere, latitudes were incorporated only in the coasts of Africa, Brazil and India, while Europe and the caribbean Sea continued to be represented according to the portolan-chart model