IET EngX

1 Aug 2023

3 minute read time.

Isolario, Book of Islands, is the best-known work of Venetian cartographer and miniaturist Benedetto Bordone. It was originally printed in Venice in 1528 by Nicolo Zappino, but the edition held by the IET is from a later printing in 1534. It was intended to be a guide for sailors and includes double page woodcut maps as well as smaller woodcut maps in the text. The book forms part of the collection of Silvanus P. Thompson purchased in 1917 by the IET. You can find out more about Thompson, his work and his association with the IET here. His collection of books and pamphlets covered a wide range of subjects including navigation, which is likely why he acquired this work. His collection also includes several similar works such as The Safeguard of Sailers by Cornelius Antoniszoon published in 1590 and Arte Del Navigare by Pietro da Medina published in 1609.

Bordone describes the important islands and ports throughout the Mediterranean and beyond, as well as providing a guide to their culture and history. Later editions contain Copia della lettre del profetto della India la Nova Spagna, which gives the earliest printed account of the conquest of Peru by Pizarro in 1533.

Island books were very popular in 15^th and 16^th century Italy and Bordone’s Isolario is the second printed example of one. The first printed island book was published around 1485 by Sonetti and consisted of 49 maps of islands in the Greek Archipelago. Bordone uses an oval map of the world (see top of page) which depicts a somewhat distorted view of North America and depicts only the Northern parts of South America. Although Bordone is often credited with being the inventor of this type of map, an earlier and very rare version had previously been made by Francesco Rosselli in around 1508.

The book contains several individually significant maps including the first printed map of the North American continent. There is also a map of the plan of “Temistitan”, which we know now as Mexico City, before it was destroyed in a siege by the Spanish army led by Hernan Cortes. There is also a map of “Ciampagu”, the earliest known European-printed map of Japan as an island.

Who was Benedetto Bordone?

Benedetto Bordone was a Venetian cartographer, manuscript editor and miniaturist whose exact date of birth is unknown, but we can estimate that it was around 1460. His parents were married in Padua, at the time part of the Republic of Venice, in 1442 and he himself married there in 1480. Around 1493 he moved to Venice and remained there until 1529.

Bordone had trained as an “illuminator” and wood-engraver and designed woodcut illustrations for books as well as working on classical and religious texts, and documents for the Venetian nobility. He applied to the Venetian Senate on several occasions for permission to work on various publishing projects including in 1494 receiving the right to publish works by Lucian in Latin translations. In 1504 he published woodcuts of a Triumph of Caesar.

In 1508, whilst working in Venice, he was granted permission by the Venetian Senate to print a woodcut map of Italy and the world which unfortunately has not survived into the present day. Many of the maps that he is recorded as having made have also not survived and so his best-known work of cartography is Isolario. In 1529 Bordone made his will and left his books, including many on astronomy and philosophy, to his son Giulio. By the time of his death in 1531 he had moved back to Padua and was living there with his nephew. His is buried in the Church of San Daniele. Bordone had gained a significant reputation as a cartographer with both the geographer Leandro Alberti and the historian Bernadino Scardeone referring to his map of Italy in their writings and praising his work in cartography.