Catalan Atlas and Abraham and Jehuda Cresques
Abraham Cresques also known as, Cresques the Jew, was appointed as a Master of Maps and Compasses by John I of Aragon. The money he got for his appointment was used to build baths for Jews in Palma. In 1374 and 1375 Abraham and his son Jehuda worked on a special order. John I of Aragon advised the authorities that he needed to get a map, which would show the Strait of Gibraltar, the Atlantic coast and the ocean itself. The map they made got the name Catalan Atlas, and it is the most important Catalan map of the medieval period. The first two leaves, forming the oriental portion of the Catalan Atlas, illustrate numerous religious references as well as a synthesis of medieval mappae mundi (Jerusalem located close to the center) and the travel literature of the time, notably Marco Polo's Book of Marvels and the Travels, and Voyage of Sir John Mandeville. Many Indian and Chinese cities can be identified. The explanatory texts report customs described by Marco Polo. Cresques, who knew Arabic, also used the travel narratives of Moroccan explorer Ibn Battuta. Mecca has a blue dome and shows Muslim prayer. The text next to the image is:
In this town is the shrine of Mohammed the Prophet of the Saracens, who come here on pilgrimages from every country. And they say that, having seen something so precious, they are no longer worthy of seeing anything more at all, and they blind themselves in honor of Mohammed."
While the areas under Muslim control were marked with domes, Jerusalem was surrounded by tales from Old and New Testaments like the Garden of Eden, the crucifixion, Noah's Ark and others.
The image of the caravan is accompanied by Marco Polo's travel account:
You must know that those who wish to cross this desert remain and lodge for one whole week in a town named Lop, where they and their beasts can rest. Then they lay in all the provisions they need for seven months.
A Catalan Atlas was requested by Charles VI of France, even though he expelled all the Jews from France in 1394.
The Catalan Atlas is located now in Bibliothèque nationale de France. A few other Cresques maps were mentioned in inventories from Spain and France in late 1387.
Jehuda Cresques continued his father's traditions. He was forced to convert to Christianity in 1391. His new name was Jacobus Ribes. He was called "lo Juen buscoler" (the map Jew), or "el jueu de les bruixoles" (the compass Jew). Jehuda was ordered to move to Barcelona, where he continued his work, as a court cartographer. Later, he was invited to Portugal by Henry the Navigator, but his maps were still made in Catalan (Majorca) traditions, and that's why he was called "Mestre Jacome de Malhorca". He was the first director of famous Nautical observatory at Sagres at the age of discovery.
Read more about this topic: Majorcan Cartographic School
Famous quotes containing the words catalan, atlas and/or abraham:
“It’s better that it should make you sick than that you don’t eat it at all.”
—Catalan proverb, quoted in Colman Andrews, Catalan Cuisine.
“A big leather-bound volume makes an ideal razorstrap. A thin book is useful to stick under a table with a broken caster to steady it. A large, flat atlas can be used to cover a window with a broken pane. And a thick, old-fashioned heavy book with a clasp is the finest thing in the world to throw at a noisy cat.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)
“When Abraham Lincoln penned the immortal emancipation proclamation he did not stop to inquire whether every man and every woman in Southern slavery did or did not want to be free. Whether women do or do not wish to vote does not affect the question of their right to do so.”
—Mary E. Haggart, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4, ch. 3, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)