From about the 10th century onwards, Venice was one of the determining great trading powers of the Mediterranean - and thus of the 'western', the European world. It is easy to see that maritime navigation and cartography were existential for a maritime republic like Venice - about as important as the proverbial 'German engineering' was for Germany from the end of the 19th century.
Battista Agnese is one of the most important cartographers in late medieval Venice - and yet already one whose works illustrate the end of Venice's supremacy. And one about whom little is known, although there was no shortage of official or private notes in the 16th century. All that is known about him is what he himself noted on his maps between 1536 and 1564. He was born around 1500 in Genoa, the former great power in the western Mediterranean, and worked in Venice from about 1515 until his death around 1564. His workshop - the production sites were distributed in Venice, Mallorca, Lisbon and Seville - is considered the most productive of the time. More than a thousand maps have been preserved, manuscripts, individual nautical charts (portolans) and atlases with up to 30 sheets spread all over Europe. Although printing technology for reproduction existed even then, Agnese's maps were intricately hand-painted parchments.
The cards have since been meticulously studied, and it has been found, for example, that namings can be assigned to a particular hand, symbols again to another hand. Agnese must have employed specialized calligraphers and experts for the colored or golden decorations and illustrations.
The dimensions and shape of land and sea were already relatively accurate at that time, despite some distortions, but there is no grid of longitude and latitude, but a confusing network of lines radiating from sixteen ray centers to the edge of the map, which were used to determine direction and course.
Agneses nautical charts include information on countries, coasts, and port cities (hence the name "portolane") in addition to the chart itself. They were supplemented and updated over time with new incoming information from merchants and sailors.
Thus, from the end of the 15th century, with Columbus' Atlantic crossing and Magellan's circumnavigation of the globe, the "map horizon", the mapping of the known land masses and their coasts, moved beyond the "rim" of the Mediterranean into the vastness of the West. Battista Agnese even dedicated a separate sheet to Magellan's circumnavigation, a world map showing Magellan's itinerary.
Unexplored land is blurred and nebulous on world maps, and only slowly do the outlines of the just-discovered continents take shape. Thus, southern California is missing from Agnese's early maps, only to gradually take shape as a peninsula. Battista Agnese's Venice, however, a major trading power in the Mediterranean, had to be the big loser of this development, because now trade shifted westward to the Atlantic - just as for about a hundred years the Atlantic riparians have been losing importance to the countries on the Pacific.
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 - (MeisterDrucke-97158).jpg "Zodiac Calendar, from an Atlas of the World in 33 Maps, Venice, 1st September 1553 by Battista Agnese")
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 (see also 330950) - (MeisterDrucke-87632).jpg "The Continent of Europe, from an Atlas of the World in 33 Maps, Venice, 1st September 1553 by Battista Agnese")
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 (see also 330956) - (MeisterDrucke-54987).jpg "The Indian Ocean, from an Atlas of the World in 33 Maps, Venice by Battista Agnese")
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.jpg "The New World, from an Atlas of the World in 33 Maps, Venice, 1st September 1553 by Battista Agnese")
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 - (MeisterDrucke-105531).jpg "World map tracing Magellan")
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 (see also 330947) - (MeisterDrucke-79815).jpg "The Continent of Africa, from an Atlas of the World in 33 Maps, Venice, 1st September 1553 by Battista Agnese")
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.jpg "Africa, from Atlas of the World in thirty-three Maps by Battista Agnese")
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.jpg "The Kingdoms of England and Scotland, from an Atlas of the World in 33 Maps, Venice, 1st September 1553 (detail) by Battista Agnese")
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.jpg "The Indian Ocean and Part of Asia and Africa: Spring of the Nile River and Madagascar, from Atlas of the World in Thirty-Three Maps by Battista Agnese")
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.jpg "Northern Europe, from Atlas of the World in thirty-three Maps by Battista Agnese")
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 (see also 330953) - (MeisterDrucke-55409).jpg "Detail from Europe and Central Asia (from an Atlas of the World in 33 Maps, Venice, 1st September 1553) by Battista Agnese")
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.jpg "Nile River Delta, Red Sea and Mount Sinai, from Atlas of the World in Thirty-Three Maps by Battista Agnese")
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 (see also 330962) - (MeisterDrucke-102658).jpg "The Pacific Ocean, from an Atlas of the World in 33 Maps, Venice, 1st September 1553 by Battista Agnese")
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 (see also 330954) - (MeisterDrucke-86251).jpg "Europe and Central Asia, from an Atlas of the World in 33 Maps, Venice, 1st September 1553 by Battista Agnese")
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.jpg "Holy Land, Israel and Palestine, from Atlas of the World in Thirty-Three Maps, by Battista Agnese by Battista Agnese")
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.jpg "Map of Northern Europe by Battista Agnese")
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.jpg "Holy Land, Israel and Palestine: Jerusalem and the Dead Sea, from Atlas of the World in Thirty-Three Maps, by Battista Agnese by Battista Agnese")
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 - (MeisterDrucke-110185).jpg "Map of Magellan")
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.jpg "Africa: Egypt and Saudi Arabia, from Atlas of the World in Thirty-Three Maps by Battista Agnese")
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 (detail from 330955) - (MeisterDrucke-42965).jpg "India and Malaysia, from an Atlas of the World in 33 Maps, Venice, 1st September 1553 (detail) by Battista Agnese")
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 (detail from 330955) - (MeisterDrucke-41048).jpg "Madagascar, from an Atlas of the World in 33 Maps, Venice, 1st September 1553 (detail) by Battista Agnese")
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.jpg "Holy Land, Israel and Palestine: Sea of Galilee and City of Tiberias, from Atlas of the World in Thirty-Three Maps, by Battista Agnese by Battista Agnese")
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 (detail from 330966) - (MeisterDrucke-142747).jpg "The Sea of Galilee, from an Atlas of the World in 33 Maps (detail) by Battista Agnese")
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.jpg "The Holy Land, from an Atlas of the World in 33 Maps, Venice by Battista Agnese")
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 (see also 330964) - (MeisterDrucke-102741).jpg "The Middle East, from an Atlas of the World in 33 Maps, Venice, 1st September 1553 by Battista Agnese")
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.jpg "The Indian Ocean and part of Asia and Africa, from Atlas of the World in thirty-three Maps by Battista Agnese")
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.jpg "Nile River Delta, Red Sea and Mount Sinai, from Atlas of the World in Thirty-Three Maps, by Battista Agnese by Battista Agnese")
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.jpg "The Indian Ocean and Part of Asia and Africa: Malaysia and Islands of Java and Sumatra, from Atlas of the World in Thirty-Three Maps, by Battista Agnese by Battista Agnese")
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 (detail from 330963) - (MeisterDrucke-50254).jpg "Mount Sinai and the Red Sea, from an Atlas of the World in 33 Maps, Venice, 1st September 1553 (detail) by Battista Agnese")
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 (see also 330952) - (MeisterDrucke-93448).jpg "Northern Europe, from an Atlas of the World in 33 maps, Venice, 1st September 1553 (ink on vellum) by Battista Agnese")
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 - (MeisterDrucke-73612).jpg "Italy, from an Atlas of the World in 33 Maps, Venice, 1st September 1553 by Battista Agnese")
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.jpg "Africa, Europe and part of Americas: Central America, from Atlas of the World in thirty-three Maps by Battista Agnese")
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 (detail from 330946) - (MeisterDrucke-115920).jpg "Ethiopia, the Red Sea and Saudi Arabia, from an Atlas of the World in 33 Maps, Venice, 1st September 1553 (Detail) by Battista Agnese")
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 (detail from 330959) - (MeisterDrucke-59996).jpg "South America, from an Atlas of the World in 33 Maps, Venice, 1st September 1553 by Battista Agnese")
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.jpg "Oval Planisphere of the World Showing Magellan")
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 (detail from 330960) - (MeisterDrucke-120039).jpg "Central America, from an Atlas of the World in 33 Maps (detail) by Battista Agnese")
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.jpg "Europe, from Atlas of the World in thirty-three Maps by Battista Agnese")
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.jpg "Northern Europe: Iceland, from Atlas of the World in thirty-three Maps by Battista Agnese")
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 (detail from 330955) - (MeisterDrucke-76405).jpg "Part of Africa, from an Atlas of the World in 33 Maps, Venice, 1st September 1553 (detail) by Battista Agnese")
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.jpg "Eastern Europe and Central Asia: Transilvania and Russia, from Atlas of the World in thirty-three Maps by Battista Agnese")
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.jpg "Africa, Europe and Part of Americas, from Atlas of the World in Thirty-Three Maps, by Battista Agnese by Battista Agnese")
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.jpg "The Indian Ocean and part of Asia and Africa: the course of the Nile river, from Atlas of the World in thirty-three Maps by Battista Agnese")
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.jpg "The Indian Ocean and Part of Asia and Africa: the Indian Peninsula, from Atlas of the World in Thirty-Three Maps, by Battista Agnese by Battista Agnese")
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.jpg "Italy, from Atlas of the World in thirty-three Maps by Battista Agnese")
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.jpg "Europe: Great Britain and Ireland, from Atlas of the World in Thirty-Three Maps, by Battista Agnese by Battista Agnese")
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 (detail from 330951) - (MeisterDrucke-47527).jpg "Iceland, from an Atlas of the World in 33 Maps, Venice, 1st September 1553 (detail) by Battista Agnese")
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.jpg "Navigation Chart Showing China, Ceylon and the Philippines and the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn, c.1540 by Battista Agnese")
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.jpg "Eastern Europe and Central Asia, from Atlas of the World in Thirty-Three Maps by Battista Agnese")
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.jpg "Africa, Europe and Part of Americas: Central America and Brazil, from Atlas of the World in Thirty-Three Maps, by Battista Agnese by Battista Agnese")
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.jpg "Eastern Mediterranean and Aegean Sea. Battista Agnese, Portolan Atlas (Italy ca. 1550) by Battista Agnese")
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.jpg "Zodiac Calendar, from Atlas of World in 33 maps, by Battista Agnese, Venice by Battista Agnese")
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.jpg "Moschoviae Tabula, Map of Russia and European Cities along the Volga River by Battista Agnese")
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.jpg "Hemispheric map of the old World, from Europe and Africa to India; showing the divisions of Ptolemy by Battista Agnese")
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.jpg "Chart 3: Indian Ocean, Portolan Atlas of the World, Venice by Battista Agnese")
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_-_(MeisterDrucke-1506182).jpg "Chart of Chius (Chios, Greece) by Battista Agnese")
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.jpg "Chart of Moscow and the Black Sea by Battista Agnese")
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.jpg "Persia by Battista Agnese")
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.jpg "Zodiac as spheres with the earth in the center from the Portolan Atlas by Battista Agnese")
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.jpg "Map of Malta by Battista Agnese")
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.jpg "A Double-Page Map of the Atlantic Ocean, Showing the East Coast of North and South America by Battista Agnese")
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.jpg "Map of the Black Sea Including Part of Present-Day Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey, Ukraine, and Russia by Battista Agnese")
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.jpg "Vellum chart of Africa, India and the Mediterranean by Battista Agnese")
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.jpg "Chart of Sicily by Battista Agnese")
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.jpg "Chart of Negroponte by Battista Agnese")
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.jpg "Map of Scandinavia by Battista Agnese")
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.jpg "Africa, from the Atlas of Nautical Charts by Battista Agnese, 30 October 1554 by Battista Agnese")
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.jpg "Vellum Chart of Cyprus by Battista Agnese")
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.jpg "Map of Creta 1554 by Battista Agnese")
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.jpg "Chart of Black Sea by Battista Agnese")
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