Map of the British Isles f. D1v

Map of the British Isles f. D1v

Sixteenth century--Cartography--Ireland--Purgatory

This is a map of the British Isles. It is a wood cut and is by the Venetian Pietro Coppo.

Pietro Coppo, 1469/70 – 1555/56

British Library, Maps Collection

1528

Owned and digitised by British Library

Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial licence

Woodcut engraving, 103 x 72mm

Italian

Manuscript engraving

DD_0339

54.616218, -7.876212

This is a map of the British Isles. It is a wood cut and is by the Venetian Pietro Coppo. It was produced in Venice in 1528. It is a crude presentation and is unusual in that it is orientated with north-west at the top of the map. Scotland is separated from England by a tract of sea, a feature typical of portolan charts. Portolan charts were the invention of Italian mariners and were concerned with the depiction of coastlines for navigational purposes. These charts also typically show the coast lines as a series generalised curves and angular shapes, reminiscent of jig-saw pieces, a feature shown here. Also in common with portolan charts is the inclusion here of the Purgatory of St Patrick on the west side of Ireland. This was a fabled lake populated by many small islands. There were no subsequent issues of this map which was likely to have only been illustrative in function as Pietro Coppo had already produced superior larger scale maps of the British isles.

British Library, Gr.7292 f. D1v