The African Continent - Battista Agnese

This map, created by the Genoese cartographer Battista Agnese and included in a manuscript atlas consisting of 33 charts, executed in Venice on September 1, 1553, reflects the mature phase of Renaissance cartography, halfway between a nautical portolan and a decorative geographical chart. The coasts are drawn with good accuracy for Mediterranean and Atlantic routes, while the interior of the continent remains largely conjectural, populated by idealized rivers, symbolic cities, and vignettes of sovereigns, exotic animals, and biblical scenes, in line with the Ptolemaic tradition and the European imagination of the "dark continent." The work, executed on parchment and intended for aristocratic patrons, is both a tool of political prestige and an object of devotional art toward the geographical knowledge of the time.

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