The Dieppe maps are a series of world maps and atlases produced in Dieppe, France, in the 1540s, 1550s, and 1560s. They are large hand-produced works, commissioned for wealthy and royal patrons, including Kings Henry II of France and Henry VIII of England. The Dieppe school of cartographers included Pierre Desceliers, Jean Rotz, Guillaume Le Testu, Guillaume Brouscon and Nicolas Desliens.
The Dieppe Maps known to have existed into modern times include the following [1] [2] [3]
Sarah Toulouse has published a more detailed and comprehensive list of 37 charts and atlases made between 1542 and 1635 and belonging to the Dieppe or Norman school of marine cartography. [20]
Because many of the inscriptions on the Dieppe maps are written in French, Portuguese or Gallicised Portuguese, it has often been assumed that the Dieppe school of mapmakers were working from Portuguese sources that no longer exist. It has been assumed that Portuguese cartographers were bribed for information of the latest discoveries, despite the official Portuguese ‘Politica de sigilo’ (‘policy of silence’). The Cantino map of 1502 (not a Dieppe school map) shows evidence of second-hand Portuguese sources, and this has been taken by some as supporting evidence for this assumption. [21]
Common features of most of the Dieppe world maps (see Vallard 1547, Desceliers 1550) are the compass roses and navigational rhumb lines, suggestive of a sea-chart. However, the maps are best understood as works of art, clearly intended to be spread out on a table, and containing information on the latest discoveries, side by side with mythological references and illustrations. For example, the Desceliers 1550 map carries descriptions of early French attempts to colonise Canada, the conquests of Peru by the Spanish and the Portuguese sea-trade among the Spice Islands. On the same map can be found descriptions of legendary Cathay, king Prester John in Ethiopia, and the race of Amazons in Russia. [22] Other Dieppe maps also carry fictitious features such as the Marco Polo inspired Zanzibar/Îles des Geanz. (see Vallard 1547, Rotz 1542 and Dauphin c. 1536–42). As with other maps made before the 17th century, the Dieppe maps show no knowledge of longitude. While latitude could be marked in degrees as observed by astrolabe or quadrant, easting could only be given in distance. [23] Mercator's projection first appeared in 1568–9, a development too late to influence the Dieppe cartographers.
Most of the Dieppe maps depict a large land mass entitled Jave la Grande or terre de lucac (Locach) between what is now Indonesia and Antarctica. In the English-speaking world particularly, academic and popular interest in the Dieppe maps over the last 150 years has focused largely on this feature of the maps. This is because Jave la Grande is thought by some writers to provide clues of a possible Portuguese exploration of Australia's coasts in the 1520s. However, the most recent academic writings on the Dieppe maps by Carile (1997), Brunelle (2007) and King (2009) have suggested that the maps need to be considered in their entirety, and consideration needs to be given to what they reveal about various influences on the mapmakers, as well as French aspirations.
This group of writers argue that the maps are not necessarily literal records of voyages of exploration. On the 1543 world chart of Guillaume Brouscon this feature, the northern part of TERRE OSTRALE (Terra Australis), is called terre de lucac (Locach); on this chart, la Jave grande refers to Java, and Jave refers to an island to its east (Bali, Lombok or Sumbawa). Similarly, on the 1570 Carte cosmographique ou Universelle description du monde of Jean Cossin, an originator of the sinusoidal projection, this feature is called Terre de lucac, [24] as it is also by Jacques de Vaulx on his chart. On the so-called Pasterot atlas (British Library MS Egerton 1513) it is called IOCAT, another form of Locach.
It is noteworthy that the Unfortunate Isles (Islas Infortunadas) discovered during Magellan's voyage across the Pacific in 1522 appear on the Dieppe maps, renamed with a corrupted version of his name as ysles de magna and ye de saill or some slight variation thereof, and displaced to the vicinity of Jave la Grande / Lucach. [25]
Professor Gayle K. Brunelle of California State University has argued that, although the Dieppe school of cartographers was active for only a generation – from about 1535 to 1562 – the cartographers associated with it were acting as propagandists for French geographic knowledge and territorial claims in the New World. The decades when the Dieppe school was flourishing were also the decades in which French trade with the New World was at its 16th-century height, in terms of the North Atlantic fish trade, the still fledgling fur trade, and, most important for the cartographers, the rivalry with the Portuguese for control of the coasts of Brazil and the supplies of lucrative Brazilwood. Brunelle states that the Dieppe cartographers accessed cartographic skills and geographic knowledge from Portuguese mariners, pilots, and geographers working in France, at the same time as they were producing maps meant to emphasize French dominion over the New World, both in Newfoundland and in Brazil, that the Portuguese also claimed. Portuguese-style maps, in particular, became the basis for the work of other cartographers produced for courts throughout Europe, so much so that at times Italian, French, German, or Flemish map makers did not even bother to translate the Portuguese inscriptions they had 'borrowed' from Portuguese maps. [26] Brunelle noted that, in design and decorative style the Dieppe school maps represented a blending of the latest geographical and nautical knowledge circulating in Europe (and the portolan style of depicting coastlines), with older conceptualizations of world geography deriving from Ptolemy and mediaeval cartographers and explorers such as Marco Polo. Renaissance mapmakers such as those based in Dieppe relied heavily on each other's work, as well as on maps from previous generations, and thus their maps represented a mixture of old and new data and even differing conceptualizations of space, often coexisting uneasily in the same map. [27]
The Dieppe maps all depict the hypothetical southern continent, Terra Australis, incorporating a huge promontory extending northward called "Jave la Grande". According to the French geographer Numa Broc, Terra Australis found its most inspired illustrator in the pilot-cartographer of Le Havre, Guillaume Le Testu. [28] Le Testu's Cosmographie Universelle, the sumptuous atlas he presented in 1556 to Gaspard II de Coligny, Grand Admiral of France, constituted a veritable encyclopaedia of the geographic and ethnographic knowledge of the time. French historian Frank Lestringant has said: "The nautical fiction of Le Testu fulfilled the conditions of a technical instrumentality, while giving to King Henry II and his minister, Admiral Coligny, the… anticipatory image of an empire that awaited to be brought into being". [29] In the Cosmographie twelve vividly coloured charts are devoted to a survey of the fictitious continent Terra Australis. In these charts, Le Testu drew the outlines of an enormous Austral continent which covered the southern part of the globe and filled a considerable part of the Indian Ocean. This imaginary land derived from the Antichthone of the Greeks and had already been reactivated, notably by the mathematician and cosmographer Oronce Fine (1531) and by Le Testu's predecessors of the Dieppe school. According to the Portuguese historian Paolo Carile, the attitude of Le Testu reveals a cultural conflict between the old cosmographic beliefs and the demands of an empirical concept of geographical and ethnographical knowledge, influenced by the rigour of his Calvinist faith. Carile notes that while on the iconographic side Le Testu depicts an Austral Continent with strangely tropical conditions incorporating beasts drawn from fantasy and old legends, on the other side he nullifies these leaps of imagination by his admission that the land shown as part of the Terra Australis was still unknown and what was marked out on his map was based solely on imagination and surmise. [30]
The cartographers of the Dieppe school incorporated into their world maps the cosmographic concepts of Oronce Fine, the first Professor of Mathematics at the Collège Royal in Paris (now the Collège de France). His 1531 world map was published in 1532 in the Novus Orbis Regionum ac Insularum. Fine's cosmography was derived from that of the German mathematician, Johannes Schöner. [31] In his study of Schöner's globes, Franz von Wieser, found that the derivation of Fine's mappemonde from them was "unverkennbar" ("unmistakeable"). [32] Lucien Gallois noted in 1890, as Franz von Wieser had done before him, the undeniable "ressemblance parfaite" ("perfect resemblance") between Fine's 1531 mappemonde and Schöner's 1533 globe. [33] Schöner's globe of 1523 also closely resembled Fine's mappemonde, proving that Schöner's cosmographic concepts pre-dated those of Finé. Albert Anthiaume wrote in 1911:
Whence had the Norman cartographers drawn the idea of this continent [la Terre Australe]? From the bicordiform mappemonde of Oronce Finé (1531), which he in turn had borrowed, according to Gallois, from Schoener....Most of the Norman cartographers, and particularly Le Testu, knew the works of Oronce Finé. [34]
One place name in particular on the Dieppe maps, the baie bresille on northwest coast the 1542 Rotz map's Lande of Java, which appears as Baye bresille on the Harleian, Baye bresill on the Desceliers and Baie Braecillie on Le Testu's Grande Jave of 1556, illustrates the reliance of their makers on the Schöner/Finé cosmography. Armand Rainaud noted in 1893 that this appellation, "without doubt comes from the globes of Schoener and the maps of Oronce Fine". [35] On Finé's 1531 mappemonde, BRASIELIE REGIO is shown as part of the Terra Australis lying to the east of Africa and to the south of Java, just where Schöner located BRASIELIE REGIO on his 1523 globe, and where the Dieppe maps locate their Baye Bresille. [36]
Another indication of this reliance is given by the placement of CATIGARA (Kattigara) on the western coast of South America on the mid-1540s Harleian mappemonde and on Le Testu's 1556 map of western South America: the same location it occupied on Fine's 1531 mappemonde and on Schöner's 1523 and 1533 globes. Kattigara or Cattigara was understood by the 2nd-century Alexandrian geographer Ptolemy to be a port and emporium on the eastern side of the Sinus Magnus ("Great Gulf"), the actual Gulf of Thailand. [37] The 1507 Waldseemüller map shows Catigara in this location. Following the 1519–1521 circumnavigation of the world by the expedition led by Ferdinand Magellan and completed after his death in the Philippines by Sebastian de Juan Sebastián Elcano, Schöner identified the Pacific Ocean with Ptolemy's Sinus Magnus, which he labelled on his 1523 globe, SINUS MAGNUS EOV[um] MARE DE SUR (the Great Gulf, Eastern Sea, South Sea"). [38] The eastern side of the Sinus Magnus, which Schöner took to be the peninsula of India Superior (Indochina) where Cattigara was located, was therefore identified by him with South America, which on his 1533 globe bears the inscription, America, Indiae superioris et Asiae continentis pars ("America, a part of India Superior and of the Asian continent"). Cattigara was accordingly located on Schöner's 1523 and 1533 globes on the western coast of South America. CATIGARA occupied the same location on Fine's mappemonde, as it also did on the Dieppe school maps, the mid-1540s Harleian mappemonde and Le Testu's 1556 map of western South America.
The extent of French knowledge concerning Terra Australis in the mid-16th century is indicated by Lancelot Voisin de La Popelinière, who in 1582 published Les Trois Mondes, a work setting out the history of the discovery of the globe. In Les Trois Mondes, La Popelinière pursued a geopolitical design by using cosmographic conjectures which were at the time quite credible, to theorize a colonial expansion by France into the Austral territories. His country, eliminated from colonial competition in the New World after a series of checks at the hands of the Portuguese and Spanish, could only thenceforward orient her expansion toward this "third world". He declared: "to the ambition of the French is promised the Terre Australe, a territory which could not but be filled with all kinds of goods and things of excellence". [39] Taking up an earlier proposal by André d'Albaigne and inspired by Le Testu's description of Terra Australis, La Popelinière described in eloquent terms this unknown "third world" which would complete the Old World and the New World. He wrote;
"it is a land extending towards the South, or Midi, to thirty degrees from the Equator, of much greater extent than the whole of America, only discovered by Magellan when he passed through the strait that is the passage between the Austral land and the southern quarter of America to go to the Moluccas... We know nothing of so fine, so great a country, which can have no less of wealth nor other properties than the Old and New Worlds". [40]
It is noteworthy that La Popelinière believed that only Ferdinand Magellan had actually sighted the southern continent, in the shape of Tierra del Fuego. He was apparently ignorant that Francis Drake sailed through open sea to the south of Tierra del Fuego in 1578, proving it to be an island and not, as Magellan had supposed, part of Terra Australis. La Popelinière, the would be colonist, gave no indication that he thought that anyone, French, Portuguese or otherwise, had visited the part of Terra Australis shown on the Dieppe maps as "Jave la Grande".
Discussion of the Dieppe maps in contemporary Australia (except for the work of Robert J. King) is exclusively confined to the Jave la Grande feature. [41] In the media, the maps are sometimes mistakenly described as Portuguese. [42] [43] [44]
The first writer to put these maps forward as evidence of Portuguese discovery of Australia was Alexander Dalrymple in 1786, in a short note to his Memoir Concerning the Chagos and Adjacent Islands. [45] Dalrymple was intrigued enough to publish 200 copies of the Dauphin map. [46]
Since then a number of other writers have contributed to the debate about the "Jave La Grande" landmass that appears on the Dieppe maps. These include;
Terra Australis was a hypothetical continent first posited in antiquity and which appeared on maps between the 15th and 18th centuries. Its existence was not based on any survey or direct observation, but rather on the idea that continental land in the Northern Hemisphere should be balanced by land in the Southern Hemisphere. This theory of balancing land has been documented as early as the 5th century on maps by Macrobius, who uses the term Australis on his maps.
The maritime European exploration of Australia consisted of several waves of European seafarers who sailed the edges of the Australian continent. Dutch navigators were the first Europeans known to have explored and mapped the Australian coastline. The first documented encounter was that of Dutch navigator Willem Janszoon, in 1606. Dutch seafarers also visited the west and north coasts of the continent, as did French explorers.
Terra incognita or terra ignota is a term used in cartography for regions that have not been mapped or documented. The expression is believed to be first seen in Ptolemy's Geography c. 150. The term was reintroduced in the 15th century from the rediscovery of Ptolemy's work during the Age of Discovery. The equivalent on French maps would be terres inconnues, and some English maps may show Parts Unknown.
The theory of Portuguese discovery of Australia claims that early Portuguese navigators were the first Europeans to sight Australia between 1521 and 1524, well before the arrival of Dutch navigator Willem Janszoon in 1606 on board the Duyfken who is generally considered to be the first European discoverer. While lacking generally accepted evidence, this theory is based on the following:
Melchisédech or Melchisédec Thévenot was a French author, scientist, traveller, cartographer, orientalist, inventor, and diplomat. He was the inventor of the spirit level and is also famous for his popular posthumously published 1696 book The Art of Swimming, one of the first books on the subject and widely read during the 18th century. The book popularized the breaststroke ; he was inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame in 1990. He also influenced the founding of the Académie Royale des Sciences.
Oronce Fine was a French mathematician, cartographer, editor and book illustrator.
The Johannes Schöner globes are a series of globes made by Johannes Schöner (1477–1547), the first being made in 1515. Schöner's globes are some of the oldest still in existence. Some of them are said by some authors to show parts of the world that were not yet known to Europeans, such as the Magellan Strait and the Antarctic.
The Jagiellonian globe, also known as the Globus Jagellonicus, is a mechanical armillary sphere made in France before 1510. It is an astronomical instrument and a universal clock tracking both local solar time and sidereal time. The central brass sphere is engraved with a map of Earth and contains the clock mechanism. It is the oldest extant globe to use the name America.
Jean Fonteneau, dit Alfonse de Saintonge or João Afonso in Portuguese was a Portuguese navigator, explorer and corsair, prominent in the European age of discovery. He had an early career in Portugal and later served the King of France.
Beyond Capricorn: How Portuguese adventurers secretly discovered and mapped Australia and New Zealand 250 years before Captain Cook is a 2007 book by journalist Peter Trickett on the theory of Portuguese discovery of Australia. Although its thesis is similar to that advanced by Kenneth McIntyre in 1977, Lawrence Fitzgerald in 1984 and others, the publisher and some news reports presented it as being a new theory on the discovery of Australia.
La grande isle de Java was, according to Marco Polo, the largest island in the world; his Java Minor was the actual island of Sumatra, which takes its name from the city of Samudera situated on its northern coast.
Pierre Desceliers was a French cartographer of the Renaissance and an eminent member of the Dieppe School of Cartography. He is considered the father of French hydrography.
Guillaume Le Testu, sometimes referred to as Guillaume Le Têtu, was a French privateer, explorer and navigator. He was one of the foremost cartographers of his time and an author of the Dieppe maps. His maps were distinguished by their sophistication and detail; they influenced generations of cartographers, navigators and explorers.
Jean Rotz, also called Johne Rotz, was a 16th-century French artist-cartographer. He was born to a Scottish father and a French mother.
Regio Patalis is Latin for “the region of Patala”, that is the region around the ancient city of Patala at the mouth of the Indus River in Sindh, Pakistan. The historians of Alexander the Great state that the Indus parted into two branches at the city of Patala before reaching the sea, and the island thus formed was called Patalene, the district of Patala. Alexander constructed a harbour at Patala.
Emanuel Bowen was a Welsh map engraver, who achieved the unique distinction of becoming Royal Mapmaker to both to King George II of Great Britain and Louis XV of France. Bowen was highly regarded by his contemporaries for producing some of the largest, most detailed and most accurate maps of his era. He is known to have worked with most British cartographic figures of the period including John Owen and Herman Moll.
The Dragon's Tail is a modern name for the phantom peninsula in southeast Asia which appeared in medieval Arabian and Renaissance European world maps. It formed the eastern shore of the Great Gulf east of the Golden Chersonese, replacing the "unknown lands" which Ptolemy and others had thought surrounded the "Indian Sea".
The Vallard Atlas is a world atlas, one of the Dieppe school of maps, produced in 1547. It is believed to have been owned by Nicolas Vallard, its authorship being unknown.
The Vallard Atlas is an atlas produced in Dieppe, Northern France, in 1547. It was ascribed to Nicolas Vallard. However, there is a degree of uncertainty over his authorship. Nowadays, it is believed that the Vallard Atlas was developed from an earlier Portuguese prototype.
The Javanese presence in Australia has been reported by native Southeast Asian and European people over several centuries. The most renowned record is from the itinerary of Chiaymasiouro, king of Demak, and Declaraçam de Malaca e India Meridional com o Cathay by Manuel Godinho de Eredia. Chiaymasiouro describes a land called LucaAntara in Southeast direction of Java, which Eredia coined the term India Meridional. According to Chiaymasiouro's accounts, a subgroup of Javanese people already settled in those lands, but when Eredia's servant went to LucaAntara in 1610, the land had seemingly been abandoned.
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