Map · Venetian vernacular and Latin
Andrea Bianco’s circular world map, 1436, in his portolan atlas, Marciana Ms. It. Z. 76 (=4783), ff. 10v-11r
Mappamondo (in the atlas of Andrea Bianco, 1436)
Andrea Bianco (Venetian galley officer and chartmaker)
How we know
compilation Assembled from earlier sources. The author did not observe it directly.
Compilation: portolan charts (firsthand Mediterranean navigation) plus a schematic mappamundi from medieval sources; Asia not observed.
Research notes
- Signed and dated; the mappamundi is schematic and depends on medieval sources, while the same atlas contains a separate Ptolemaic world map (fol. 9v-10r per literature, not sampled).
- Sampled through the Museo Galileo 'Il mappamondo di Fra Mauro' online exhibition (2021-2025), which serves zoomify tile pyramids of comparison maps by concession of the holding libraries (site states further reproduction forbidden). Tile base: mostre.museogalileo.it/images/framauro/05_mapp…; tiles at TileGroupN/level-col-row.jpg.
Why it matters
Bianco is named by the Museo Galileo exhibition as a cartographic source of Fra Mauro (M027); his 1436 mappamundi represents the Venetian image of Tartar Asia a generation before Fra Mauro and in the same city.
Places named
Whole known world, east at top; Asia with Cathay and Tartar realms; Europe; Africa
Who copied whom
Later in the chain
- World Map M027, c. 1450drawn from this one (stated)Bianco 1436 is a source for Fra Mauro