716 william eamon
although few Venetians actually traveled to the new World, Venice’s
cartographers produced some of the most important maps describing
the overseas discoveries. it is not difficult to understand why cartography
should have occupied such a significant place in Venetian culture.46 as
a major commercial center that depended for its economic life on mari-
time trade, Venice needed accurate, up-to-date maps and sailing charts.
in addition, as a major printing center, Venice was well situated to take
a leading role in disseminating the cartographic developments that were
taking place as a result of the humanistic revival of Ptolemy’s Geography
and the overseas discoveries. at a time when Spain and Portugal vied for
territorial domination of the new World, placing constraints upon the
diffusion of information, Venice, with its enterprising printers, skilled
engravers, and accomplished cartographers, emerged as the main center
of map production in europe.
Giacomo Gastaldi (c.1500–66) was 16th-century Venice’s most prolific
cartographer. Gastaldi began his career as an engineer for the Venetian
republic and began making maps in the 1540s.47 Gastaldi revolutionized
the technique of mapmaking. Using copperplate engraving instead of
woodblock printing, he produced some of the most accurate and detailed
maps of his time. His regional maps of the new World, produced for a
1548 edition of Ptolemy’s Geography, were the most comprehensive of
the day.48
Venice as an Emporiumeven if Venice did not produce notable explorers of its own, the city’s
merchants enthusiastically traded in the goods brought back from distant
lands. in the shops lining the Merceria, merchants sold foodstuffs, spices,
textiles, jewelry, perfume, and a luxuriant array of commodities from all
points of the known world, many having been shipped through lisbon or
other iberian ports. each day, walking along the busy street, one would
have seen and smelled evidence of Venice’s success as a commercial
entrepôt.
46 d. cosgrove, “Mapping new Worlds: culture and cartography in Sixteenth-century
Venice,” Imago Mundi 44 (1992), 65–89.
47 robert W. Karrow, Mapmakers of the Sixteenth Century and Their Maps: Bio-
Bibliographies of the Cartographers of Abraham Ortelius, 1570 (chicago, 1993).
48 on Gastaldi’s maps, see S. Grande, Le carte d’America di Giacomo Gastaldi (Turin,
1905).