CAVERI MAP

C A V E R I M A P

The Caveri Map (1505).

It depicts Americas, Asia, Africa and Europe.The Caverio Map (also known as Caveri Map or Canerio Map) is a map drawn by Nicolay de Caveri, circa 1505.

History

Currently at Bibliothèque Nationale de France in Paris. First described in 1890 and reproduced two years later. This undated map was one of the primary sources used to make the Waldseemüller map in 1507. Many historians believe that Caveri map was completed in 1504-05. The map is signed with "Nicolay de Caveri Januensis". It was probably either made in Lisbon by the Genoese Canveri, or copied by him in Genoa from a Portuguese map very similar to the Cantino map, if not the Cantino map itself. The Cantino map was in Genoa toward the end of 1502 and presumably the following few years, when Caveri could have used it as the basis of his map.

The map

It is drawn on parchment by hand and coloured. It is composed of ten sections or panels, the whole forming a rectangle measuring 2.25 by 1.15 metres.

Mystery associated with this map

According to Carlos Sanz (Mapas antiguos del mundo, Madrid, 1961), if the east coast of the North America is compared with modern-day maps, we will be struck by its immediately noticeable similarity with the coastline stretching from Florida to the Delaware or Hudson River. “This would appear to be impossible”, he adds, “when we consider the general belief that the Europeans neither saw nor set foot on the beaches in the southern states of the present-day U.S.A. before Ponce de León arrived there in 1512 or 1513, Giovanni da Verrazzano in 1523, Lucas Vásquez de Ayllón in 1520-1524 or Esteban Gómez in 1525. An explanation must be found”. Or, by Vasco Núñez de Balboa in 1513.

What appears to be the Gulf of Mexico can be seen on the map, at a time when, “officially” it had still not been discovered by the Spanish yet, though it is not certain this represents the Gulf. A half-dozen other explanations have been offered by historians of cartography. As there are 21 placenames written on the American coast, one possible explanation is that sailors had previously navigated these coasts. Based on this information, maps were created. This map presumably then obtained data from these unknown maps.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caverio_map