Juan de la Cosa Portolan World Chart

#305

Title: Juan de la Cosa Portolan World Chart

Date: 1500
Author: Juan de la Cosa
Description: The original parchment of this map or chart, a piece of ox-
hide measuring 37.5 x 72 inches (96 x 183 cm), superbly illustrated in ink
and water colors, was found in 1832 in a shop in Paris by Baron
Walckenaer, a bibliophile and the Dutch Ambassador, and was brought
to the attention of the world the following year by Alexander
Humboldt, the famous German scholar. Upon the death of Baron Walckenaer in 1853,
the Queen of Spain purchased the map and, though greatly deteriorated, is now the
chief treasure of the Museo Naval in Madrid. Notwithstanding several large holes, the
map may be said to be in a good state of preservation. There is, however, a regrettable
gap on the northern coast of Brazil, where a piece two inches wide, containing names,
has been torn off. Originally a manuscript map, it was never engraved or printed until
recent years, and therefore may have exercised little influence on the cartography of the
16th century, except for those privileged few who were allowed to study it.
The name of the maker of the map is in the legend under the picture of St.
Christopher, at the left, which reads: Juan de la cosa la fizo en el puerto de S: ma en año de
1500 [Juan de la Cosa made it in the port of Santa Maria in the year 1500]. Some
scholars accept this date, others do not. One of the latter is George E. Nunn. In The
Mappemonde of Juan de la Cosa he held that the map is a copy and not an original work of
La Cosa, and that it probably dates from about 1508 instead of 1500. He argued, (a) that
the insular nature of Cuba shown on the map does not fit the exploration record as of
1500; (b) that the map makes South America a peninsula of southeastern Asia believed
in by Martin Behaim (Book III, #258), and that no navigator or explorer is known to have
held this concept before Columbus’ fourth voyage; (c) that it shows evidence of
exploration of the coast west of Cabo de la Vela to the vignette of St. Christopher and
beyond it west of Cuba, by which exploration Nunn meant the mainland discoveries of
Rodrigo de Bastidas and La Cosa in 1501-02 and of Columbus in 1502-03; (d) that it
shows evidence of both of the Cabot voyages; (e) that it shows evidence of exploration of
southern Brazil after 1503 at least; and (f) that it shows the island group in the South
Atlantic Ocean which corresponds to the Tristan da Cunha islands. Nunn concluded
that some of this information could not have been available to La Cosa at the earliest
before 1504, and some of it probably not before 1507 or 1508.
Another theory claims that this is a copy by a
draftsman who was unable to decipher La Cosa’s
original lettering. This theory is born out by the many
names, even on the South American coasts that had been
explored by Cosa himself, that are unintelligible and
meaningless.
However, the date of 1500 was confirmed by a
series of rigorous laboratory testing: radiography,
reflection of rays and ultraviolet rays. Moreover, as far as
its publication date, not only does the map carry on it the
date of 1500, but it has features that would have been utterly different had it been
compiled in 1508. Thus in 1501-02 Cosa explored the Gulf of Uraba and the coast of
Darien, yet these are not shown on his map nor are there any names on the hypothetical
coasts drawn thereon. Again Columbus in 1502-03 explored from Yucatan to Darien and

1
 Juan de la Cosa Portolan World Chart
#305

his coasts and names are not shown on the Cosa map. The weakest feature of the Cosa
map is its grotesque representation of Brazil south of the equator. This was excusable in
1500, but by 1508 Amerigo Vespucci was pilot-major of Spain and his great voyage from
5° S to 42° S would have been available for La Cosa to correct his outlines of South
America. There is no cause to doubt that the Cosa map was compiled in 1500. La Cosa
returned to Spain with Alonso de Ojeda [Hojeda] in July 1500 and left again with
Bastidas for Colombia in October of that year, which means that the map was drawn
between these months.
The author of this map, regarded as one of the oldest cartographic documents
relating to the voyages of Christopher Columbus (1451-1506) and John Cabot (ca 1455-
1499), is Juan de la Cosa (c. 1509). La Cosa has been called “the most expert mariner and
unrivaled pilot of his age.” He participates as a cartographer in the second voyage of
Columbus, from 1493 to 1494, and not as a pilot and owner of the Santa Maria the first
trip in 1492, a view often repeated in the historiography of the discovery of the New
World. From 1499 to 1500, La Cosa took part in voyages of discovery by Alonso de
Ojeda (1471-1515), of Amerigo Vespucci (1451-1512) and Vicente Yanez Pinzón (ca 1461-
ca 1524). With others he signed the famous affidavit, demanded by Columbus, that he
believed Cuba to be a part of the mainland of Asia. In 1499, he was chief pilot of Ojeda’s
expedition along the northern coast of South America. On this voyage, he was associated
with Amerigo Vespucci. Upon his return from this expedition in 1500, he made his
famous marine chart for Ferdinand and Isabella. Later he went on four other voyages to
the new world and in 1509 was killed by the Indians in Venezuela, “pierced by more
than twenty poisoned arrows.”

This map is an excellent example of the portolan [nautical] charts that came into
use among Italian sailors in the 13th and 14th centuries. The map of La Cosa actually
consists of two charts, one of the “Old World” and one of the “New World”, separated
and plotted in two different scales, as is the case for a number of maps from this era. The
scale is given by a line of dots, unnumbered and unexplained; the distance between the

2
 Juan de la Cosa Portolan World Chart
#305

points however is apparently intended to represent fifty miles. Both chart sections are
attached along the meridian through the Azores. The scale on which the New World is
drawn is larger than the Old World, the proportion is 1.4 to 1 with the consequent
extension of the place America occupies in relation to Europe, Africa and traced part of
Asia. Another consequence is that Brazil is almost the same latitude as Cape of Good
Hope and that Cuba is placed above the Tropic of Cancer. The 400-mile distance
separating Ireland to Newfoundland is reduced to 240 miles. This feature of the map
indicates that La Cosa himself traced only the New World section and an anonymous
cartographer added the section on the Old World to allow users of the map to compare
the two.
The La Cosa chart also displays compass roses and direction lines. The northern
tropic (i.e., the Tropic of Cancer) and the equator are drawn, but lines or degrees of
latitude or longitude are not indicated except the liña meridional crossing the tip of Brazil,
which is thought to be the Line of Demarcation established by the Treaty of Tordesillas of
1494. This line is also plainly indicated with a suitable inscription on the Cantino map
made in 1502 (#306). La Cosa, who was Basque by birth, placed most of the New World
under Spanish jurisdiction. The lack of parallels and meridians, and the apparent
compilation of the map from separate portolan charts of the Old and New Worlds with
differing scales but no attempt to reconcile them, reveal the extreme difficulties involved
in constructing a world map, or planisphere, during the early period of the Age of
Discovery. The Italian portolan originated in the Greek periplus, a harbor-book or set of
sailing directions describing harbors, shoals, distances, currents and winds, but
containing no map. The Italian portolan was made on the model of the periplus but
contained a map or chart showing the coastline and a few places along the coast, but, as
it was intended only for seamen, it gave little information of the interior of even the
most populous countries. After the invention of the compass, portolans became
numerous. At least one hundred portolan charts made before 1500 are still in existence
(see Book III, #250.1). Modern maps developed from these portolans. In addition to Juan
de la Cosa, some of the most distinguished makers of Renaissance portolan charts were
Alberto Cantino (#306), Nicolo de Caveri (#307), Diego Ribero (#346), Vesconte de
Maiollo (#328.2) and Battista Agnese (#371).
The chief interest in the map is its delineation of the coastline of the New World
so recently discovered and so little known at that time. North America, which in most
early maps (up to 1506) normally consisted of separate islands, only later fusing into a
cohesive whole, is shown on the Cosa map as a solid landmass extending far into the
North Atlantic. In the west are the discoveries of Cabot in the north and of Columbus
and the Spaniards in the West Indies and along the northeastern coasts of South
America.
The Caribbean islands already show, in contrast to Columbus’ ideas, clear
hallmarks of the way they appear in much later maps. The Bahamas group is shown
with some accuracy but necessarily on a small scale. It includes the island Guanahani,
Columbus’ first landfall, alternatively known as San Salvador and now identified with
Watling Island. No special emphasis is given to this memorable locality. Haiti and Cuba
are located north of the Tropic of Cancer. The latter island is now first known by that
name. Columbus had called it Iuna. Its representation as an island, instead of a part of
the mainland of Asia, indicates that La Cosa had changed his opinion since he signed the
famous affidavit. The historian Henry Harrisse sees in this insular character of Cuba
strong confirmation of the much-disputed story of Vespucci’s voyage along the coast of

3
 Juan de la Cosa Portolan World Chart
#305

the mainland in 1497. He points out that there is no record of any other voyage prior to
1500, the date of the map, which had revealed the insularity of Cuba, and that La Cosa
may have obtained his information directly from Vespucci, while they were together
under Ojeda, in 1499, on the Pearl Coast. The later world maps of Cantino, and of Caveri,
1502, agree with La Cosa in putting water and a mainland west of Cuba; indeed these
two maps are even more explicit than that of La Cosa in that they place more than a
score of names on the supposed mainland, which may be identified as Florida.
The earliest and, for more than half-a-century, the most complete description of
Cuba is the one which is inserted in this famous planisphere. La Cosa was considered in
Spain as the greatest cartographer of his day, and the pilot best conversant with the West
India seas. He had been, moreover, Christopher Columbus’ chief pilot on several
transatlantic expeditions. No seaman, therefore, could then make a more reliable chart
of the Antillies than Juan de la Cosa; and his map of Cuba must be considered as
embodying all that which was known concerning its ports, rivers, capes, and other sea-
board localities, from the time of the discovery to the close of the year 1500. On his
cartographical representation of Cuba, the great Basque pilot has inscribed as many as
twenty-seven names of landings, estuaries, streams, harbors, headlands, towns, or
hamlets. In the Cantino map (#306), drawn in 1502, the coastline, alleged as aforesaid to
be a duplicate of the island of Cuba, contains also numerous nomenclature. Here again,
if that region in the Cantino chart is really Cuba, we should find among its legends and
designations the identical names that are inscribed on the Cuba of La Cosa, especially as
both maps were crafted within a year of each other. An analysis of such nomenclature
by the scholar Henry Harrisse has determined that there is not even a single matching

4
 Juan de la Cosa Portolan World Chart
#305

place-name among the twenty-two. The fact, of itself, were it not supported by the other
proofs which have been documented, is sufficient evidence that the northwest coast in
the Cantino map and Cuba in La Cosa’s map were intended to represent two entirely
different geographic areas.
Nomenclatures play such an important part in the identification of
cartographical documents; they enable us to ascend so surely to the origin not only of
names, but also of the configurations on which we find them inscribed, that no better
means can be employed by critics to solve the numerous problems which are involved in
every ancient map, chart, and globe, without a single exception. And even when the
names are scarcely legible, or evidently corrupted by the inattention of cartographers,
and their ignorance, oftentimes, of the language employed in the prototype, they still
serve to indicate the source from which were borrowed important geographical
averments. But La Cosa’s chart was made before October 1500, yet Cuba is depicted
therein as it is in reality, elongated, deeply indented (at Nipe, Nuevitas, Turiguana,
Cardenas, Matanzas, etc.), depressed or strangulated in two places (Manzanilla-Jbara
and Sabanilla-Jalibonico), the western extremity curved and forming at its southwest
end a very large bay, which is studded with islands.
La Cosa avoided the problem of the possible
existence of straits in Central America that
might provide a sea link to the Far East. Apart
from its decorative function, the vignette that he
inserted in Central America serves to hide the
part of the new lands unknown when looking
for a passage to Cathay. La Cosa uses a similar
ploy by truncating the route from Asia to avoid
the question of whether Columbus and Cabot
arrived in the far eastern Asia or in a new land.
The map exemplifies the problem of the exact
concept of the New World and the perception of
geographical discovery in the days of La Cosa.
The vignette at the left of the map represents St.
Christopher, with a pine tree as a staff, carrying
the infant Jesus over the deep water, as
Christopher Columbus carried the knowledge
of Christ over the sea to the natives of the newly
discovered lands. As mentioned, below the
drawing of St. Christopher in the neck of the skin, is the inscription Juan de la Cosa la fizo
en el puerto de s. maria en ano de 1500. It has been suggested that the face of the saint is a
portrait of Columbus. It is a matter of argument whether La Cosa intended to represent
the mainland behind Cuba as the eastern coast of Asia. If so, it seems strange that he
placed no Asiatic names upon it as other cartographers did later on.
Cuba appears here for the first time under the name derived from the native
word Cubanacán; Columbus had called the land Iuna. La Cosa displays La Espanola
(Haiti) north of the Tropic of Cancer. It is presented as an island and not as part of the
Asian continent, a view contrary to the concept of Columbus who always considered
Cuba a peninsular extension of Asia.

5
 Juan de la Cosa Portolan World Chart
#305

What is shown of South America also suggests that it is probably a continental

landmass. Off the coast of Brazil, the island with the legend, Ysla descubierta por portugal
[Island discovered for Portugal], refers to the fact that on January 28, 1500,
approximately two months after his departure from Palos, Vicente Pinzón finally located
the promontory extreme eastern Southern Hemisphere and indicates La Cosa’s belief
concerning the location of the land discovered by Cabral in 1500. He called it Santa Maria
de la Consolacion and took possession for the Spanish crown. This event took place three
months before the same site is seen by the explorer Portuguese Pedro Alvares Cabral (ca
1467-1520) during his journey to India via the Cape of Good Hope. The news of this
discovery was probably brought to Spain while La Cosa was still working on his map.
On the coast of the mainland farther north is the legend: Este cavo se descubrio en año de
mily IIII XCIX por Castilla syendo descubridor vicenttians. [This cape was discovered in the
year 1499 for Castile, Vicente Yañez being the discoverer thereof.] This refers to the
discovery made by the Spaniard, Vicente Yañez Pinzon, January 20, 1500 (1499 old
style), three months before the Portuguese Cabral sighted the same coast on his way to
India via the Cape of Good Hope. Mar Dulce commemorates the current of fresh water at
the mouth of the Orinoco River seen by La Cosa far out to sea when he was with
Columbus on his second voyage. Costa de perlas, or the Pearl Coast, on the northern coast
of South America, was first discovered by Columbus on his third voyage in 1498 and
had been visited again by La Cosa, with Ojeda and Vespucci, in 1499.
The liña meridional, which crosses the extreme east of Brazil, is the line fixed in
1494 by the Treaty of Tordesillas, dividing the territories between Spain and Portugal. It
is now the meridian 49° W of Greenwich.
While Cosa could draw upon the voyages of Columbus and Spanish explorers
for the Antilles and much of South America, no Spanish ships had by 1500 visited
Central and North America. The Cosa map represents them as a continuous landmass
extending to the Arctic, which was cosmographically correct, but the actual coastlines
are clearly hypothetical in outline and without nomenclature, proving they were not
based on charts of actual voyages that had explored such coasts. The one exception is the

6
 Juan de la Cosa Portolan World Chart
#305

east-west coast in the northwestern portion of La Cosa’s map with the five English flags
shown at about 52° north. Five English flags in pale blue and brown, are planted in the
North Coast with the inscription Mar descubierta ynglesie in [Sea discovered by the
English]. Southeast of the map marked with the words cavo of ynglaterra [Cape of
England]. La Cosa here refers to explorations in British North America, made in 1497
and 1498, by John Cabot (ca 1455-1499). The source used by La Cosa for this part is
presumably inspired by the map of John Cabot on his explorations in America and now
lost. Indeed, it is almost certain that La Cosa copied this part of the coast of Cabot’s map
drawn in 1497 after his return to England and sent to King Ferdinand by the Spanish
ambassador to England, Pedro de Ayala. The map historian R.A. Skelton wrote: “The
only map which unambiguously illustrates John Cabot’s voyage of 1497 . . . is the world map
signed by Juan de la Cosa and dated 1500”. A study of the Cabot voyage of 1498 by J.A.
Williamson reveals that this voyage coasted from Greenland to New England and that
Cabot’s ship went down off Newfoundland, leaving the consort vessel to bring news of
his end to England in the early summer of 1499. The English coasts on the Cosa map
consequently represent the discoveries made in the 1497 voyage. Cabot left Bristol on 2nd
May 1497 in a little ship called the Matthew, with a crew of only eighteen men.
Information as to his discoveries in English records is meager but certain statements
provide a skeleton by which they may be reconstructed.

1. It is known that he tacked against the westerlies for 54 days and made landfall on 24th
June (Bristol records). Sebastian Cabot, in his map of 1544 (#372), indicated this landfall
as Cape Breton island: This land was discovered by John Cabot the Venetian and Sebastian
Cabot, his son, in the year 1497 on the 24th June in the morning, to which they gave the name
“Land First Seen”. Since Sebastian had no motive for lying about the location of the
landfall there is no reason to doubt this statement.

2. Lorenzo Pasqualigo to his brothers in Venice on 23rd August 1497: That Venetian of ours
who went with a small ship from Bristol to find new islands has come back and says he has
discovered mainland 700 leagues away, which is the country of the Grand Khan, and that he
coasted it for 300 leagues and landed and did not see any person, ... and on the way back he saw
two islands...

Unfortunately, this cartographical data is not sufficiently precise to enable one to

locate the landfalls with adequate exactness. Nor is the kind of projection adopted,
without explicit degrees of latitude, of such a character as to aid someone much in
determining positions. One is compelled, therefore, to resort to inferences.
Much attention has been attracted to La Cosa’s representation of the northeastern
coastline of America. The principal features are (I) a prominent cape, Cavo da Yngleterra,
about 1,300 miles from south-west Ireland, and approximately in the same latitude; (2)
to the west of this Cape, an extent of coastline, running about due west for
approximately 1,200 miles: a number of features along this coast are named, and this is
the only portion of the North American coastline on which names occur; and (3) beyond
this coast, a stretch without names continues for another 700 miles, forms a bay, Mar
descubierta por Yngleses, and then turns southwards.
The Cavo da Yngleterra is shown in about 56° N latitude. Since, however, the
latitudes of many places in Europe are out by several degrees (Land’s End, for example,
is shown 4.5° too far north) the Cavo may be assumed to be not further north than 51° 30'

7
 Juan de la Cosa Portolan World Chart
#305

N, which would put it in the neighborhood of Belle Isle Strait. On the other hand, the
1,200 miles of explored coastline is in all probability southern Newfoundland or Nova
Scotia, so that the Cavo de Yngleterra must have lain further south, and Cape Race at once
suggests itself, but as nothing more than a possibility. J.A. Williamson, however who
credits this charting to the Cabots in 1497-8 believes that the Cavo was Cape Breton,
while G. E. Nunn identifies it with Cape Farewell in Greenland.
The northwestern portion of La Cosa’s map sets forth twenty inscriptions, seven
of which are the names of capes, whilst one refers to a river (r° longo), another to an
island (isla de la trinidad), and a third to a lake (lago fore?). Although many of those
designations convey no meaning to the scholar (apparently on account of imperfect
transcriptions), and are not to be found on any other map, they must be considered as
proving that the coast had been actually visited before 1500. On the other hand, the
northernmost names represent certainly the points marked by John Cabot during his
first voyage, whether we place them on the north coast of Labrador or on the east shores
of Newfoundland. But as the line of English flagstaffs covers a space by far too extensive
for the Cabot voyage of 1497, which lasted only three months, the legends placed further
south necessarily apply to the expedition of 1498.
When preparing himself to return to the newly discovered regions, John Cabot
told Raimondo di Soncino that his intention was to pursue the undertaking as follows:
“From the place already possessed [discovered] he would proceed by constantly following the
shore, until he reached the east, and was opposite an island called Cipango, situate in the
equinoctial region.”
All that is clear in this vague description, and which must be retained just now, is
that John Cabot’s ultimate objective, when he set out from England in 1498, was an
equatorial or southern region situated south of the point reached by him in 1497. To this
interpretation must be added the fact that the line of British flags in La Cosa’s map,
corroborates such an intention, as it indicates plainly a southward coasting.
How far south then did John Cabot go in 1498? Taking the distance from the
equator to the extreme north in La Cosa’s map as a criterion for measuring distances,
and comparing relatively the points named therein with points corresponding for the
same latitude on modern planispheres, the last English flagstaff in the southern direction
seems to indicate a vicinity south of the present-day Carolinas.
The five English standards in the north and the inscriptions, mar descubierta por
yngleses [sea discovered by the English] and cavo de ynglaterra [Cape of England,
corresponding with a point almost as high north as the entrance to Davis Strait], indicate
the explorations of the Cabots in 1497 and 1498, probably reached either Newfoundland
or Nova Scotia, i.e., 50°- 53°N. It is believed that La Cosa drew this portion of the coast
from Cabot’s map, now lost, which Pedro de Ayala, the Spanish Ambassador at London,
sent to King Ferdinand.
In latitude the Old World portion of the map extends from the Scandinavian
peninsula southwards to the African continent. The African coast as far as the Cape of
Good Hope is represented with fair accuracy, apparently drawn from Portuguese
sources. The eastern coast however seems to be entirely imaginary. Well out in the
Indian Sea, almost in the center, are two large islands, Zanabar and Madagascoa, as on
Behaim’s globe (#258). La Cosa shows the coastline of Africa and the Cape of Good
Hope with considerable accuracy. The inscription on the southern coast of Asia, tierra
descubierta por el Rey don Manuel Rey de Portugal [land discovered by King Manuel King
of Portugal], refers to Vasco da Gama’s voyage to Calicut on the western coast of India

8
 Juan de la Cosa Portolan World Chart
#305

from which he had returned to Portugal the previous year from his first voyage. The
numerous names on the eastern coast of Africa, however, cannot be attributed to da
Gama.
Ceylon/Sri Lanka appears in the large triangular island of Trapobana. The non-
peninsular coast of India is from the Ptolemaic cartographic tradition; the outline of the
Asian coast, however, is no improvement on that of the Catalan Map of 1375 (Book III,
#245). In the various kingdoms into which Asia and Africa are divided by La Cosa are
pictures of the reigning sovereigns, some seated on thrones. In the far northeastern
corner of Asia, enclosed by a great semicircular river and split by a broad moat, “R[egio]
Got” and “R[egio] Magot”: above R. Got is a dog-headed figure. Above R. Magot is a
humanoid monster whose face is in its chest and who holds in each hand what appears,
from the color and shape, to be a piece of meat. The topos of Gog and Magog as
anthropophagi has been merged with Solinus’ blemmyae in the latter example, with
another legend concerning men with dog’s heads in the former. R. Got and R. magot
suggest the Biblical Gog and Magog (see article at the end of Book II).
At Babylon is seen the tower;
near the eastern shore of the Red
Sea, which on the original
parchment is properly colored red,
is the Queen of Sheba with drawn
sword; and crossing Asia towards
Syria are the Three Wise Men,
bearing gifts.

The Middle East and Asia

The Cosa planisphere does

not extend eastward beyond the
northern border of the Arabian Sea,
omitting, therefore, Hindostan, the
Malay Peninsula and China. Yet the
La Cosa map depicts the Rio Ganges,
but where one would also expect the
Indus River. All of the Asian
portion of the Cosa map is
extremely inferior, particularly compared with other contemporary world maps such as
the Cantino chart (#306), although there is only a difference of eighteen months between
the two. However, it should not be inferred from such an important omission that La
Cosa considered the continent, depicted by him west of Cuba, as identical with the east
coast of Asia, and, consequently, could not have added the latter to his eastern
configurations without repeating what he had already marked on the same map. Had
such been his geographical conception of the world, he would not have omitted the India
intra and extra Gangem, and especially the Molucca regions, nor to name Cathay, Mangi
and all the cities and provinces rendered famous by Marco Polo and which had figured
in all mappamundi of the 15th century.

9
 Juan de la Cosa Portolan World Chart
#305

As mentioned earlier, the map in fact has every appearance of having been put
together from at least two sections: the western portion comprising the American
discoveries and perhaps the West African coast having been joined to a portion of a
world map resembling those of fifty years earlier which display the influence of
Ptolemy. If we use the distance between the tropic and the equator to obtain a scale of
degrees, and apply this to the map, we find that in the western section, though there are
discrepancies, the general picture is not wildly inaccurate. The newly discovered lands
are placed in fair relationship to those of Western Europe. The longitudinal difference
between the Iberian coast and Hispaniola is apparently about 62°, instead of 59°, and
between the African coast and the northeast coast of South America approximately 16°,
instead of 17.75°. For a reason which has never been satisfactorily explained, Hispaniola
and Cuba are placed well to the north of
the tropic; the north coast of Cuba being
shown in approximately 36° N., some
12° too far north. Whatever the reason
for this, it would appear that the Central
and South American portion is on a
larger scale than the rest of the map.
The representation of Africa is
distorted by the excessive length of the
Mediterranean. The general shape of the
western coastline is good, though, in
relation to the west-east extent of the
Gulf of Guinea coast, the coastline
southwards to the Cape is too short. This
was a characteristic of early Portuguese
charts of this region: owing to adverse
sailing conditions, it was usual to
underestimate distances run.

In the top right corner at the farthest limits of the

map’s coverage in northern Asia de la Cosa places the
monsters Gog and Magog, one half dog and the other half
with his head on his chest, apparently eating human flesh

10
 Juan de la Cosa Portolan World Chart
#305

Africa as shown on a reproduction of the La Cosa map

Previous cartographic studies of the 1500 map by La Cosa have found substantial
and difficult-to-explain errors in latitude, especially for the Antilles and the Caribbean
coast. In Luis Macias’ study, a mathematical methodology was applied to identify the
underlying cartographic projection of the Atlantic region of the map, and to evaluate its
latitudinal and longitudinal accuracy. The results obtained show that La Cosa’s latitudes
are in fact reasonably accurate between the English Channel and the Congo River for the
Old World, and also between Cuba and the Amazon River for the New World. Other
important findings were that scale is mathematically consistent across the whole
Atlantic basin, and that the line labeled Cancro on the map does not represent the Tropic
of Cancer, as usually assumed, but the ecliptic. The underlying projection found for La
Cosa’s map has a simple geometric interpretation and is relatively easy to compute, but
had not been described in detail until this study. It may have emerged involuntarily as a
consequence of the mapmaking methods used by the map’s author, but the historical
context of the chart suggests that it was probably the result of a deliberate choice by the
cartographer.

Location: Museo Naval, Madrid, Spain

Size: 37.5 x 72 inches (96 x 183 cm)

11
 Juan de la Cosa Portolan World Chart
#305

Bibliography:
Alvarez, Aldo, “Geomagnetism and the Cartography of Juan de la Cosa: A New
Perspective on the Greater Antilles in the Age of Discovery”.
*Brotton, J., Great Maps, pp. 76-79.
Crone, Gerald R., Maps and their Makers. An Introduction to the history of Cartography, 5th
ed. (Dawson, Archon Books, 1978), p. 48.
Cummings, W.P., The Southeast in Early Maps, p. 64.
Cummings, W.P., Exploration of North America, pp. 53ff, Figures 52, 53.
Davies, A., “The ‘English Coasts on the Map of Juan de la Cosa”, Imago Mundi, Vol. 13
(1956), pp. 26-29.
Davies, A., “The Date of Juan de la Cosa’s World Map and Its Implications for American
Discovery”, The Geographical Journal 142 (1) (1976). pp. 111-116.
*Fite, E., and Freeman, A., A Book of Old Maps . . ., p. 11, no. 4.
Ganong, W.F., Crucial Maps in the Early Cartography . . ., pp. 8-43; 142-175.
*Goss, J., The Mapmakers Art, pp. 72-73, Plate 3.16.
*Harrisse, Henry, The Discovery of North America. A critical, documentary and historic
investigation, with an essay on the early cartography of the New World (Paris, 1892), pp. 42-3,
89, 98, 256, 412-415, 711-12.
Hodgkiss, A. G., Understanding maps. A systematic history of their use and development,
(Dawson, 1981), pp. 80-82.
Hoffman, B. G., Cabot to Cartier (Toronto, 1961), pp. 87-97.
*Humble, R., The Explorers, pp. 12-13.
Klemp, Egon, America in maps dating from 1500 to 1856 (New York, 1976), no. 1.
Klemp, Egon in Konrad Kretschmer, Die historischen Karten zurEntdeckung Amerikas. Atlas
nach Konrad Kretschmer, 29, references, p. 49.
La Roncière, Monique and Michel Mollat du Jourdin, Portulane. Seekarten vom 13. bis zum
17. Jh. (Munich, 1984), 211ff.
L. Martin Meras in Lexikon zeu Geschichte der Kartographie. Von den Anfängen bis zum
Ersten Weltkrieg, 2 vols. (Vienna, 1986), p. 147.
*Macias, Luis A. Robles, “Juan de la Cosa’s Projection: A Fresh Analysis of the Earliest
Preserved Map of the Americas”, Coordinates, MAGERT, Series A, No. 9, 2010.
*Nebenzahl, K., Atlas of Columbus, pp. 30-33, Plate 10.
Nordenskiöld, A.E., Periplus, p. 149, Plates XLIII, XLIV .
Nunn, Georde E., The Mappemonde of Juan de Cosa, Jenkintown, 1934.
Nunn, G., The La Cosa Map and the Cabot Voyages.
Roukema, E., “Some Remarks on the La Cosa Map”, Imago Mundi, Vol. 14 (1959), pp. 38-
54 p. 38ff.
*Shirley, R.W., The Mapping of the World, pp. xxii, xxiii, Plate 5.
Skelton, R. A., Looking at an Early Map.
Williamson, J.A., The Cabot Voyages. . ., pp. 59ff.
Wolf, H., Circa 1492, “Manuscript World Maps”, p. 45.

12
Juan de la Cosa Portolan World Chart
#305

13
Juan de la Cosa Portolan World Chart
#305

Museo Naval, Madrid, Spain

14