Article celebrates 500 years of elaboration of the oldest letter to represent Brazil
The story of Cantino's letter fascinates as much for its mysteries as for the positive data it presents. The large illustrated parchment (1050 x 2200 mm) was only revealed to researchers and the world in the 19th century, when Giuseppe Boni, director of the Estense Library in Modena, Italy, fortuitously discovered it serving as a curtain at the bottom of a sausage shop in that city. The erudite librarian acquired the map and managed to unravel its origins, following the clues provided by the cartographic document itself.
On one side of the parchment was inscribed a dedication to the Duke of Ferrara, Hercules of Este, signed by a certain Alberto Cantino, his agent in Portugal. The Duke of Ferrara, representative of a powerful lineage of merchants from Renaissance Italy, had commissioned his agent Cantino to obtain in Portugal a map of recent maritime discoveries, interested in knowing the possibilities open to trade with the East that could compete with the routes of the Mediterranean.
In a letter of September 1502, Cantino, in Rome, informed the Duke that the map was already in Genoa and would be delivered to him. He had cost 12 gold ducats in Portugal, a high price that betrayed his secret purchase. The map remained in the Duke's library until 1592, when the collection was transferred by Pope Clement VIII to a palace in Modena, where it remained for three centuries. In the mid-19th century, political riots led to the invasion and looting of the palace, when the map disappeared, until it was discovered by the luck and sensitivity of Giuseppe Boni.
The map was acquired in Lisbon under clandestine conditions, given the official policy of the Portuguese Crown to keep secrecy about the discovered lands and their maritime routes. The name of the cartographer is currently unknown, but its Portuguese invoice is certain, although at a later time the map underwent some interventions. It represents the stage of geographic knowledge of the world and incorporates the information derived from the Portuguese and Spanish expeditions of the late 15th and early 16th centuries.
Curiosities