1556 / 1606 Ramusio Map of Sumatra

First separate map of any Southeast Asian island to be based on actual observation.' - Suarez

This is the 1606 issue of Giovanni Battista Ramusio's seminal map of Sumatra, 'the first separate map of any Southeast Asian island to be based on actual observation' (Suarez) and one of the first European maps to focus narrowly on so remote a part of the world. It is derived ultimately from the charts of Pierre Crignon, Dieppe navigator and chartmaker, who attended the 1529 attempt of Jean and Raoul Parmentier to set up a trading colony in Sumatra on behalf of the French. The Parmentiers failed and died overseas, but the account of their voyage survived, along with the first detailed charting of the island - preserved in print here.

A Closer Look

This beautifully executed woodcut presents the island of Sumatra, albeit unrealistically separated from the Malay Peninsula. The map is oriented to the south, and it has long been prized for its abundant decorative elements: the sea around the island teems with fish, sea monsters, and ships - some of these bearing the Portuguese arms, and some flying the fleur de lis, alluding to the map's source: the French charts of Dieppe mariners, who were clearly making a play to challenge the global dominance of the Portuguese.

This is the first map to present an accurate outline of Sumatra, showing river inlets and bays on the coastline realistically. The absence of rivers or detailed interior cartography suggests that the source was a navigational chart; the abundance of pictorial elements, including men leading horses and camels, armed soldiers, men on horseback, and others harvesting coconuts, suggests the influence of narrative sources. The variety and specificity of the depicted denizens suggest the presence of, and the author's familiarity with, organized social structures on Sumatra: an indication that here was not an uncivilized place (like Ramusio's demon-haunted map of Canada), but somewhere one could go to do business.

The Sources

The chart's detail is extremely similar to the treatment of the island in the 1542 manuscript atlas Boke of Idrography presented to King Henry VIII by Dieppe chartmaker Jean Rotz. His charting of the island in that work is the first accurate representation not only of the island but of its people. The chart's decorative elements include the rajah's military procession and a depiction of a stilted Sumatran house. While not identical copies, the decorative elements in Ramusio's map can be said to allude to those same themes in Rotz's chart. That connection is important. Rotz's account of Jean and Raoul Parmentier's 1529 journey to Sumatra is the primary record of their voyage; Rotz implies that he was on the voyage himself. Their adventures included a disastrous landfall in Madagascar (with three crew members waylaid and killed by natives). They sighted Sumatra on October 29, 1529, anchoring at Ticou on its west coast. Although they enjoyed a friendly welcome, both Parmentiers succumbed to a local fever and died.

What is not known is whether Rotz actually attended the voyage himself, or whether he had digested and passed along the nearly eighty charts that the Parmentiers and navigator and astronomer Pierre Crignon had produced during the voyage. Crignon, like Rotz, wrote a treatise on magnetic variation; he also wrote an elegy for the Parmentiers. With direct relevance to the present work, Crignon is believed to have authored 'Discorso d'un gran capitano di mare francese dei luogo di Dieppa', the section of Ramusio's Navigationi et Viaggi in which this map appeared. It seems that Ramusio understood the connection between Crignon's report and the charts which informed this map, and possibly the others accompanying Crignon's Discorso. None of Crignon's own charts now survive, however. Rotz represents the surviving link between Crignon's charts of the Parmentier expedition and the later Dieppe hydrographers.

The Mapmakers

Ramusio, in the introduction to his Navigationi et Viaggi, wrote that he asked Giacomo Gastaldi to provide maps for his work. It is not known whether the great Venetian cartographer actually did so himself here: this map certainly does not resemble Sumatra as it appears on Gastaldi's 1548 map of Southeast Asia, and if Ramusio had direct access to the charts of Crignon or Rotz, he would not have required Gastaldi's intervention. The island, as depicted in his 1561 map of the region, bears some similarity to this, so Gastaldi may have become familiar with this geography via his collaboration with Ramusio.

Publication History and Census

This map was first cut by Matteo Pagano for inclusion in the 1556 third volume of Ramusio's Navigationi et Viaggi. The woodblocks for this, and indeed all of the maps of the 1556 edition burned in a 1557 warehouse fire. It appears in only one known state. The blocks were all re-engraved, probably again by Pagano, for the 1565 edition of the Navigationi et Viaggi. The second block is geographically identical to the first; the two blocks are most easily distinguishable by differences in the trees appearing behind the various buildings. That second block was employed one more time in 1606 (the present example.) This edition easily identifiable by the small worm-shaped blank areas (woodworm appears to have similarly infested all blocks of the 1606 edition.) The 1556 edition of the third volume of Navigationi et Viaggi. is rare. Seven examples of the 1565 are listed in OCLC, while perhaps twenty of the 1606 edition appear in institutional collections. Only one example of this separate map is catalogued in OCLC, appearing in the National Library of Scotland.

Cartographers

Giovanni Battista Ramusio (July 20, 1485 - July 10, 1557) was an Italian civil servant, humanist, scholar, historian, and geographer active in the middle part of the 16th century. Ramusio spent most of his life in the service of the Republic of Venice, first as part of that state's embassy to France, and later as a reporter on voyages and discoveries. He was born to an illustrious family in Treviso and moved to Vencie as a young man, where his father was a magistrate. He studied at the University of Padua but may not have received a full degree. He entered the civil service shortly after leaving the university and was immediately assigned to diplomatic service for his facility with languages, particularly French. His most significant contribution to cartography is his publication of Navigationi et Viaggi a collection of travel narratives he collected in his service to the state. The narratives include those of Marco Polo, Niccolò Da Conti, Magellan, Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca, Giosafat Barbaro, and Tomé Pires, among others. Some of the voyages appearing in the Navigationi et Viaggi are otherwise unknown, marking it as an exceptionally important volume. Ramusio died in Venice in 1557.   Further Details...

Jean Rotz, or Johne Rotz ( c. 1505 - c. 1560) was a 16th-century French-Scottish ship's captain, navigator, and hydrographer. Very little is known about his life. Born to a Scottish father and a French mother, he is remembered for his work as a member of the Dieppe school of chartmaking. He is known to have traveled to Brazil in 1539; he may have accompanied the Parmentiers on their 1529 voyage to Sumatra. His was certainly the first chart of Sumatra based on firsthand knowledge, providing the basis for Ramusio's 1556 map of the island. The failure of Rotz's efforts to join the court of King Francois I led him to seek his fortune across the channel, where he would enter the service of Henry VIII. His atlas, the Boke of Idrography, survived as a gift to the King. Rotz would be employed by King Henry as a privateer - until Henry's death led him to shift allegiance again to France in 1547. His date of death is not known, but he was known to have been involved in Scottish affairs as late as 1560,   Further Details...

Source

Ramusio, G. B., Delle Navigationi et Viaggi Raccolte da M. Gio. Battista Ramusio, (Venice: Appresso i Giunti) 1606.    

Condition

Excellent.

References

OCLC 500336826. Suarez, T. Early Mapping of Southeast Asia p.157, and fig.77.