Marco Polo and the Catalan Atlas​​​​​​​​​

​

The Catalan Atlas (1375), produced in the workshop of the Majorcan cartographer Abraham Cresques, is a masterpiece of medieval cartography. It synthesizes geographical knowledge from diverse medieval sources, including the accounts of Marco Polo. Originally created as a gift from the Crown of Aragon to Charles VI of France, this mappamundi offers one of the most detailed and renowned European depictions of Asia from the Middle Ages.

​

This ongoing project aims to produce the first digital, interactive web map of the Catalan Atlas. It will provide transcriptions and translations of the map's captions and identify the cities and localities included by Cresques. This section focuses on Panel VI, which contains fifty-two illuminations and place names primarily related to India and Asia.

​

Transcriptions are based on the foundational work of:

• Jean Alexandre Buchon, Notice d'un atlas en langue catalane (Paris: Imprimerie Royale, 1839).

• George Grosjean, Mapamundi. The Catalan Atlas of the Year 1375 (Zurich: Urs Graf Verlag, 1978).

 

A parallel digitization project, The Cresques Project, has been developed by Juan Ceva.

 

You may also consult the diplomatic digital edition curated by Giuliano Avino et al.: https://letteraturaeuropea.let.uniroma1.it/?q=laboratorio/mapamundi.

 

The high-resolution images used here are in the public domain and have been provided by the Bibliothèque nationale de France. Please feel free to navigate the map, zoom into details, and click on the shaded areas to reveal captions and toponyms.

​

Note: This visualization interface is currently in its beta version. We have digitized the final panel of the atlas (Panel VI), which centers on Central and East Asia. We are also currently developing a Chinese translation of the atlas's contents.​​​

​