There are two "teeth" on the Iberian Peninsula at the southwestern tip of the European continent: Spain and Portugal. Along a roughly north-south border, the larger Spain is mainly distributed in the eastern part of the Iberian Peninsula and Portugal in the western part of the peninsula. More than five hundred years ago, these two old European kingdoms, which were the first to start the plunder and expansion of overseas colonies, also "drew" three north-south meridians on the earth, which were used to divide the two spheres of influence in the world — yes, "the whole world" in the east-west direction, and the meridian that was first delineated by the Catholic Pope himself was often called the "Papal Meridian" by later generations. These "sliced" meridians, which today look like "snakes swallowing elephants", have really and profoundly affected the world's territory and geopolitical patterns, for example, to this day, brazil is still the only Portuguese-speaking country on the South American continent, while Mexico and most of the Central and South American countries are Spanish-speaking countries.
Spain and Portugal have "drawn" three north-south meridians on the earth, and the purple dotted line is the papal meridian delineated in 1493
From 1096 AD, the "Crusades" launched by the Catholic countries of Western Europe began a long and fierce collision between the Christian and Islamic worlds. In the early fifteenth century, King João I of Portugal led an army to capture Ceuta*, the strongest stronghold of Islam in Africa. His son, Prince Henrique the "Navigator", was also keen on anti-Islam and had a huge plan to "unite the Christian countries in the East and cooperate with Western Europe to attack Islam in the Middle East and North Africa." This wonderful illusion brought about by this "talk on paper" was deeply appreciated by the Pope of Rome, and the reigning Catholic Pope Nicholas V publicly declared his promise to Portugal: "All lands that have not yet been occupied by [Christians] belong to Portugal and no one may infringe!" Portugal did not waste this "preferential policy" and seized a large number of territories in Muslim countries in West Africa in the second half of the fifteenth century.
*Portugal was the first european country to begin overseas expansion and has the longest history of colonization, from the conquest of North Africa in 1415 to the transfer of sovereignty of Macau in 1999, and the history of colonial activities lasted for nearly 600 years.
In the Catholic countries of Europe at that time, people believed in two views: first, the Christian kingdom had the right to occupy the land of the pagans; second, the pope had the right to decide the ownership of the land that had not yet been occupied by the Christian rulers.
In 1481, João II, one of the greatest kings in Portuguese history, ascended the throne. As early as his time as prince he took over the seafaring business of His Uncle Enrique, became a protector of merchants and navigators, and devoted himself to finding the route to India, and because of this enlightened policy of supporting seafaring discovery, he was called "The Perfect Prince" (Príncipe Perfeito), a title that remained even after his ascension to the throne, and what he did on the throne was indeed worthy of this title: the Portuguese royal family put "conquering and expanding the territory of the kingdom" and "" The global spread of Catholicism" these two things have been regarded as their own exclusive "franchise business".
However, in early 1492, the Combined Catholic forces under the combined leadership of Ferdinand II of aragon and Isabella I of Castile defeated the Muslim Moors, and the last sultan of the Alhambra was expelled from the Iberian Peninsula, and under the catholic throne, a unified Spanish kingdom began to take shape. That same year, a Genoese navigator, Columbus, persuaded the Kingdom of Spain to finance his transatlantic expedition, setting out on 3 August and returning to Spain on 15 March the following year, convinced that he had reached the rich indian region of Asia. The Kingdom of Spain demanded from pope Alexander VI that the Holy See recognize Spain's sovereignty over the newly discovered land, a challenge to the Portuguese's "exclusive business". The King of Portugal threatened that, under the Treaty of Alcáçovas of 1479 between the two countries, all the land found south of the Canary Islands would belong to Portugal, so the place found by Columbus was no exception — it would belong to Portugal.
Pope Alexander VI at the time
In order to alleviate the growing contradictions between Spain and Portugal, on May 4, 1493, papal decree (Papal Bull Inter caetera) made the Azores or Cape Verde 100 leagues south and west of the Azores (according to the evidence that the church at that time believed that the longitudes of the Azores and Cape Verde were basically the same. At that time, 1 Portuguese Rig was about 5,555.56 meters) meridian as a dividing line, and any newly discovered land west of it belonged to the Catholic double kings (i.e., the Kingdom of Spain), which was located at about 38° west longitude, which was also known as the "Papal Meridian".
At the end of the fifteenth century, the rise of the seas and the global hegemony of Britain, France, and the Netherlands had not yet begun, and the global geographical exploration and accompanying colonial expansion were mainly the domain of the Portuguese and the Spaniards, but even so, the Portuguese were not satisfied with this "papal meridian".
King João II of Portugal did not really intend to go to war with the Spaniards in the New World discovered by Columbus, but before that, the Portuguese explorer Dias had explored the Cape of Good Hope in the southernmost part of Africa, the Indian continent was already in sight, and the division of the "Papal Meridian" was likely to affect the Portuguese route to India. So, since the pope was unappetizing, the Portuguese went straight to the Spaniards. As a result, the Portuguese pushed the meridian drawn by the Pope 270 ligs west, about 46° 37' west longitude, north-south meridian, which became the dividing line between the two countries: the dividing line to the west belonged to the Kingdom of Spain to the west and to the Kingdom of Portugal to the east. The treaty was signed by Spain and Portugal on July 2 and September 5, 1494, respectively, and the treaty was agreed upon, the Spanish town of Todesillas, which became the name of the treaty, the Treaty of Tordesillas. It was a treaty that was clearly inconsistent with the Papal Decree, but in 1506 Pope Julius II gave it a posthumous recognition in the form of another Papal Decree. Based on the ambitions for the expansion of the kingdom and the pursuit of great interests, Spain and Portugal left the pope aside and reached a treaty of their own, and some people used to refer to the meridian in the treaty as the "Papal Line of Demarcation", but the accurate name should be: "Toddhilas Meridian".
Treaty of Todesilla Treaty_of_Tordesillas
The 1502 "Cantino World Map" (also known as the "Cantino World Map or Cantino Planisphere") is the earliest surviving world map of the world that reflects the "Toddhilas Meridian", and the earliest map reflecting the exploration and discovery of the Portuguese, the forerunners of the Age of Discovery, to the east and to the west. But the name of the map comes from an Italian, Alberto Cantino.
"Candino World Map" 1502 edition and the Todecilla Meridian
At the beginning of the sixteenth century, Lisbon, the capital of Portugal, was a lively metropolis where people from different backgrounds gathered in search of work, wealth or faith and glory. Of course, there were also many "undercover agents" from other kingdoms who collected the secrets that the Portuguese had brought back after their expeditions to those remote lands, including Alberto Cantino, who had been sent to Portugal by Ercole I d'Este, Duke of Ferrara, whose official status was to seek a suitable horse trade, and his real mission, of course, was to secretly collect all the information discovered by the Portuguese on voyages and overseas discoveries for the Duchy of Ferrara on the Italian peninsula. His "diligent work" is also reflected in Two Letters from Cantino to the Duke of 17 and 18 October 1501, in which he describes a detailed report to King Manuel I of Portugal after returning from a recent expedition to Terra Nova by the Portuguese explorer Gaspar Corte-Real.
Portrait of the Duke of Ferrara Ercole_I_d'Este
In 1502, Candino succeeded in "smuggling" a map from Portugal to Italy, which is what we want to talk about today as the "Candino World Map". Early studies of the map had thought it had been made to a Portuguese cartographer, but it is now thought that a more plausible explanation is that the map may have been made for a nobleman or official customer, but was privately acquired by Candino shortly after it was made, and Cantino, in a letter dated 19 November 1502 to his patron saint, Duke Ferrara, said that he had paid 12 gold coins for the map, a considerable number at the time. On the back of the map there are inscriptions in Italian with the inscription "Cartade navigar per le Isole nouam trovate in le parte de India: dono Alberto Cantino al S. Duca Hercole", which translates to the effect of "Nautical charts of recently discovered islands ..., part of India, dedicated by Alberto Cantino to Duke of Ecker". In 1506, the Italian Nicolay de Caveri made a caverio map based entirely on this "1502 Candino World Map", and in 1507, Waldesmüller used this Cavillo map to make his famous "ten million dollar birth certificate". (See our previous issue of the official account.) ）
In 1506, the Italian Cavillo made a map of Cavilleo with full reference to this "1502 Candino World Map"
The map is dominated by rich geographic information, with few illustrations, but it is clear that they were carefully selected after a theme. Two famous cities on the Mediterranean coast in that era were highlighted — Venice and the holy city of Jerusalem — and the lighthouse of Alexandria in Egypt was "put down" on the map. The Red Sea is really depicted as orange-red. On the African continent, the location of the Gold Coast in West Africa depicts the exquisite Castello da Mina in Portugal, as well as the mysterious And legendary Moon Mountains in Central Africa, the Legendary Source of the Nile, Table Mountain in the Cape of Good Hope on the South African continent, and the pile of stones and crosses along the West African coast, which is said to have left the imprint of Dias and others when they explored in the 1480s. On the North African continent, the legendary location of Mount Atlas is marked with the word Montes Claros en Affrica, a text in the lower right of the word that is full of the imprints of that era, to the effect that "[here] the land of the Nubian king, who constantly declared war on the priest King John, was the great enemy of the Muslim Moors and the Christians."
The location of the Gold Coast of West Africa, depicting the exquisite Castello da Mina in Portugal
Originally made from six fine pieces of parchment, this ancient "Cantino World Map" was preserved in the Ducal Library of the Duchy of Ferrara for more than 90 years, until Pope Clement VIII transferred it to another palace in the ancient city of Modena, Italy. More than two centuries later, in 1859, the palace was looted and the "Cantino World Map" disappeared with it. In the same year, Giuseppe Boni, director of the Estense Library in Modena, discovered it in a butcher shop in the old city, and now this "Map of the World of Cantino in 1502" is in the Biblioteca Estense library in the ancient city of Modena.
The "Candino World Map" had high practical significance and strategic value at the beginning of the sixteenth century. At that time, the world's unknown land and seas were being explored in large quantities, and geographic information was rapidly and doubly expanded, and this map showed detailed and up-to-date strategic information. It enlightened the Italians, and so much land and sea is still unknown to the Italians; the rich geographical and shipping information on the map should not underestimate the impact of the commercial trade relations between the Italian city-state republic and Portugal at that time.
Treaty of Todesiras Meridian and Brazil Partial
In 1502, the "Toddhilas Meridian" depicted on this map was no secret. But beyond that meridian, this map has a lot of geographic information that stands out in its time, and in that era, it was strategic geographic information, such as:
- It is the earliest extant depiction of the Coast of Brazil explored by the Portuguese explorer Pedro Alvarez Cabral in 1500 and has left a fragmented shoreline record depicting the first understanding of the Brazilian coastline by Europeans;
- It depicts a large number of accurate and detailed geographical details along the African coast of the Atlantic Ocean and the coast of the Indian Ocean;
- It also draws the outlines of the Florida Peninsula and the Caribbean Islands off the east coast of North America;
- It is the earliest extant "latitude chart" (in Africa and parts of Brazil and India) depicting geographical locations based on astronomically observed latitudes, and contains unique historical information about the exploration and evolution of nautical cartography.
Let's start with the story of the Brazilian coastline, the Indian coastline and the Portuguese in this map. The Portuguese explorer Pedro Alvarez Cabral (this is one man, not three), is often regarded as the first European to discover Brazil.
The cabral statue in Brazil
(To be continued)
Glory Fleet / Orange Lake Studio works