The Medici-Laurentian atlas is composed of eight sheets. The first sheet is an astronomical calendar, the second sheet contains an unusual
world map, the third, fourth and fifth sheets compose a typical 14th-century
portolan chart (covering Europe, North Africa, the Mediterranean and Black Seas), the sixth, seventh and eighth sheets are specialized charts of the
Aegean Sea,
Adriatic Sea and
Caspian Sea. and finds itself again in the
Fra Mauro map (1459), well before it was discovered by Portuguese explorers. The notion that the
West African coast did not extend straight south but took a sharp eastward bend, could be a hazy reference to the actual Gulf of Guinea, but more probably it was just a lucky guess and a bit of wishful thinking. (Historian Russell notes that the Portuguese Prince
Henry the Navigator was entranced by the legend of the
Sinus Aethiopicus, as it held out the prospect of a direct sea route around West Africa to the Christian kingdom of
Prester John (
Ethiopian Empire), avoiding the complications of travelling through the Muslim lands of Egypt to reach it. In the Medici Atlas, the depth of the penetration of the
Sinus indeed almost reaches Ethiopia.) As for the southward extension of the
East African coast, uncommon for European maps, this was probably drawn from Arab sources, who would have known of the commercial traffic down the Muslim
Swahili coast to
Sofala. Finally, the connection between the two oceans under South Africa just ratifies the old assumption (from Biblical and Classical authority) that all the world's great water bodies were connected to each other. An Africa surrounded by water is already found on other maps (e.g.
Pietro Vesconte's c. 1320 mappa mundi). Long before the Medici map, the
Vivaldi brothers of Genoa, in 1291, had tried to sail down the west African coast, with the explicit objective of trying to find a sea route to Asia. The imaginary nature of Africa's shape in the Medici map is almost proven by noticing there are no names or details given below
Cape Bojador. If one elects to date the Medici Atlas before the Pizzigani, then this is the first European map depicting that all-important river.
Atlantic islands The Medici Atlas is also important for the history of the north
Atlantic islands. It is probably the first map to benefit from the 1341 mapping expedition to the
Canary Islands, sponsored by King
Afonso IV of Portugal and commanded by the Florentine
Angiolino del Tegghia de Corbizzi and the Genoese
Nicoloso da Recco. The expedition is said to have visited thirteen Canary islands (seven major and six minor). The Medici Atlas shows most of the main Canary islands, excellently delineated (if not yet fully named), greatly improving upon the couple in the 1339
Angelino Dulcert map. The Medici Atlas shows also for the first time, and almost correctly placed, the
Madeira archipelago, with their modern names:
Porto sto (
Porto Santo),
I. de lo Legname (
Madeira,
legname is
Ligurian for "wood") and
I dexerta (
Desertas). The
Madeira archipelago will not be officially discovered by the Portuguese until c. 1420. These names could have been in the original, or retouched later - although these same names were already given in the
Libro del Conoscimiento. The Medici Atlas also seems to show the location of
the Azores, being the first to do so. They are depicted northwest of the Madeira group, aligned on a north to south axis, rather than trailing diagonally from northwest to southeast. The islands are not all individually named, but rather named by cluster. Most southerly are the
insule de Cabrera ("Goat islands", encompassing two islands, what seem like
Santa Maria and
São Miguel), further north is the individually named
Insula Brasi ("island of embers/fire" (volcanic?) or "
dyewood", either of which point to
Terceira, but could also be the legendary Irish
Brazil), then, just west of it, a group called
insule de Ventura Sive de Columbis ("islands of venture/winds or the pigeons", three islands, probably
São Jorge,
Faial and
Pico), and then, furthest north, are a cluster of two islands labelled
insule de Corvis Marinis ('islands of the sea crows',
Corvo and
Flores). Only
Graciosa seems to be missing. These Azores islands appear with these names in two subsequent
Majorcan maps - the 1375
Catalan Atlas and the 1385 map of
Guillem Soler, with some more detailed sorting of the groups, e.g. Medici's "Ventura Sive de Columbis" label is broken into three distinct names: "San Zorzo" ("
St. George", S. Jorge),
Ventura (Faial) and
Li Columbis (Pico); and the pair of "Corvis Marinis" are distinguished between
Corvis Marinis (Corvo) and
Li Conigi ("rabbits", Flores). The anonymous Castilian author of the
Libro del Conoscimiento also supplies these names, breaking up the southerly Cabrera group (which the Catalan forgot) into the islands of
las cabras ("goats", S. Miguel) and
lobo ("seals"? S. Maria). None of the Azores islands will be officially discovered until nearly a century later, in the 1430s and 1440s. They could simply be purely legendary, possibly of
Andalusian Arab origin (e.g.
al-Idrisi speaks of an Atlantic island of wild goats (the Cabras) and another of "cormorants", a scavenger bird, possibly the "sea crows" of Corvis Marinis?). But outside their erroneous axis tilt, the Azores do seem clustered with reasonable accuracy on the Medici atlas. One (unproven) possibility is that the Azores were indeed discovered, or at least seen from a distance, quite by accident, by the aforementioned 1341 mapping expedition on their return via a long sailing arc (
volta do mar) from the Canary islands. == References ==