Bidspirit auction | HOMEM (Lopo), REINEL (Pedro), REINEL

HOMEM (Lopo), REINEL (Pedro), REINEL (Jorge), HOLANDA (António de). ATLAS Miller. Barcelona. 2003. - HOMEM (Lopo), REINEL (Pedro), REINEL (Jorge), HOLANDA (António de) ATLAS Miller . Fac-símile do manuscrito iluminado de c. 1519 conservado na Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris (Rés. Ge. AA 562). Edição única e irrepetível, limitada a 987 exemplares numerados em algarismos árabes, autenticada por acto notarial de 14 de Novembro de 2003. Exemplar n.º 440. Barcelona: M. Moleiro Editor, S.A., 2003. 5 ff.: il.; 590×415 mm. Facsimile edition of the most celebrated portolan atlas in world cartography, kept at the Bibliothèque nationale de France as its most valuable cartographic piece. Unique and unrepeatable edition of 987 numbered copies in Arabic numerals, plus 77 copies in Roman numerals intended for the BnF, the publisher and the Legal Deposit. Each copy is authenticated by a notarial act of public faith. The Miller Atlas was created in Lisbon around 1519, commissioned by King Manuel I, with the intention of presenting it to Charles V, then the elected king of the Holy Roman Empire. Its purpose was strategic: to demonstrate, through the deliberate manipulation of cartographic coordinates, that the Moluccas islands – and therefore the monopoly on spices – were located within the Portuguese hemisphere as defined by the Treaty of Tordesillas, dissuading Charles V from supporting Magellan's expedition. The maneuver did not achieve its intended effect: the expedition departed in 1519, and Magellan (or Elcano, after his death) completed the first circumnavigation of the globe. The atlas was acquired by the Bibliothèque nationale in 1897, becoming part of the collection of the Hellenist Emmanuel Miller, after whom it takes its name. The work is a collective effort: Lopo Homem, Pedro Reinel, and Jorge Reinel (cartographers) and António de Holanda (miniaturist), father of the humanist Francisco de Holanda. It comprises 6 loose parchment folios painted on both sides, making up 10 maps: 8 in the format 41.5 × 59 cm and 2 in the format 61 × 117 cm. It covers the North and South Atlantic, Northern Europe, the Azores, Madagascar, the Indian Ocean, the East Indies, the South China Sea, the Moluccas, Brazil, and the Mediterranean. The richness of the illuminations – compass roses, allegorical figures, exotic flora and fauna, representations of cities and potentates – makes this atlas a simultaneous masterpiece of cartography and the art of illumination. The complete edition also includes a 432-page commentary volume with studies by Alfredo Pinheiro Marques, Luís Filipe Thomaz, and Bernardo Sá Nogueira, which is not included in this copy. Very rare occurrence. ⚑ Auto-translated via Google Translate