VATICAN MUSEUMS - GALLERY OF THE GEOGRAPHICAL MAPS (second part)

Thirty-two big maps on the walls and eight smaller maps at the ends of the gallery

The four small maps at the entrance from the Gallery of Tapestries are:

“Tremiti Islands”

“Island of Corfu” with the representation of the Battle of Lepanto which took place in 1571, only a decade before this image was painted

“Island of Malta” with highly detailed representation of the dramatic siege placed by the Ottoman fleet in 1565

“Island of Elba” with, below, hypothetical reconstruction of the Port of Claudius at Ostia

Continuing in the Gallery alternating right and left:

“Southern Puglia” with commemorative plaque and Egnazio Danti's signature

“Jurisdiction of Avignon and the Comtat Venaissin” with the march of the papal court of Gregory XI returning to Rome in 1377 after seventy years spent in Avignon

“Northern Puglia” with on the right polyhedron on a base with a painted relief depicting the death of Archimedes to whom the polyhedron refers to. Perhaps it is the tomb of Archimedes

Extended representation of the Battle of Cannae in 216 BC during which there were almost 50,000 deaths between the Romans and allies

“Sicily” with detailed maps of Messina, Palermo and Siracusa

“Abruzzo” with the now dried Lake Fucino and accurate map of L'Aquila even if specular

“Sardinia” with spectacular sea monster in the lower right

“Territory of Ancona” with a very precise costs and insert with a bird's eye view of Loreto

“Corsica” with on the right image of a galleon ship known as caracca, with crew disproportionate to the size of the ship

“Marche” with a map of Macerata and army of 15,000 men in arms marching to rescue Rome from the landsknechts that sacked the city in 1527

“Southern Calabria” indicating, to the north of Croton, castrum annibalis to indicate the place where it was assumed Hannibal had spent three winters from 206 to 203 BC

“Duchy of Urbino” as it was until 1631, when, with the extinction of the Della Rovere family, it was incorporated in the State of the Church

There are maps of Urbino and Pesaro, as well as a wide representation of the 207 BC Battle of Metauro between the Romans and Hannibal's troops

“Northern Calabria” with a beautiful brigantine (swift ship with three masts) to the right and battle of 330 BC between Alexander the Molossian king of Epirus and an array of Bruzi and Lucani

“Romagna” defined by Danti as Flaminia, with prospects of Ravenna, Cervia surrounded by salt mines and Rimini of which there is a detailed map at the bottom

On the Via Emilia there is a marching army identifiable with that of Julius Caesar in 49 BC crossing the Rubicon. In fact it is possible to see the writing near Cesena Alea Iacta Est

“Southern Campania and Basilicata” defined by Danti as Lucania

Below is the collision with the cavalry of Hannibal in 208 BC during which the Roman consul Marcellus was killed

“Jurisdiction of Bologna” one of the best maps, rich in historical events and detailed illustrations. Below on the left there is a very detailed map of Bologna

“Southern Campania and Basilicata” one of the less accurate maps from topographical point of view. It shows the Montevergine Sanctuary

“Duchy of Ferrara” with caption of the time of Urban VIII (1623/44) pointing out the annexation to the Papal State in 1598

The hydrographic network is made perfectly with a beautiful depiction of the Valli di Comacchio. At the time the waterways were very much used to transport goods

Very interesting is the reclamation of the Polesine of St. John wanted by Alfonso II d'Este and implemented from 1564 to 1580 that had been completed very recently

“Campania” not very accurate even if there is a beautiful rendering of the map of Naples

Victory of the army of Pope John X (914/928) with the lords of southern Italy and Alberic of Spoleto against the Saracens in 915 at the Garigliano River

“Duchy of Mantua” the first known topography of Mantua although unequal in value in the different parts

“Southern Lazio” completely repainted in the year 1636/37 by Luca Holstenio, as well as the beautiful map of Rome, where there is Barberini Palace too, built in 1625/33. Very striking is the representation of the Appian Way

“Duchy of Parma and Piacenza” with maps of the two cities

“Territory of Spoleto” defined as Umbria by Danti who surveyed himself at least part of the territory

There is a map of Spoleto and the representation of Pope Leo III (795/816), the same who crowned Charlemagne, rescued in Spoleto in 795 by Duke Guinigiso

“Lagoon of Venice, Friuli and Istria” defined Iulii Forum, with Istria disproportionately larger than Friuli

It was already restored under Sixtus V (1585/90) by Giovanni Guerra (about 1542/1618) and also under Urban VIII (1623/44)

“Northern Lazio” defined Patrimonium S. Petri, completely repainted in 1636/37 by Luca Holstenio. The map of Rome was made before 1614 but under Urban VIII the Gianicolensi Walls of 1642/43 were added

At the bottom left cupids hold maps of Viterbo and Orvieto

“Domains of Venice to the west of the Piave River” with very detailed maps of Padua and Vicenza

“Territories of Perugia and Città di Castello” with a map of Perugia and its territory surveyed by Dante himself who was born in Perugia. Città di Castello is defined as Tifernum and its territory is less detailed

In 1597 Pietro Oldrado added the representation of the Battle of Lake Trasimeno in 217 BC won by Hannibal against the Romans. There were 19,000 deaths among the Romans: 15,000 legionaries plus more than 4,000 riders arrived in the following days

“Duchy of Milan” with a map of Milan simplified by a nineteenth-century overpainting and victory in 774 by Charlemagne against Desiderius king of the Lombards at Piacenza

“Tuscany and Northern Lazio” described as Etruria, restored in 1589 by Giovanni Guerra (1544/1618) and in 1596 by Pietro Oldrado

 The map is very accurate and consistent. It also includes maps of Florence, Livorno and Siena

 

“Piedmont and Monferrato” with two commemorative inscriptions for the two domains of the Duke of Savoy and the Duke of Mantua, separated by a golden line. It is not very accurate

There is a map of Turin inserted and the Battle of Ceresola of 1544 between the army of Francis I of France and the Spanish army of Charles V

“Liguria” with in the sea Andrea Doria's brig scourge of pirates and the allegorical representation of Christopher Columbus represented as a Roman emperor with the inscription Ligurian Christopher Columbus discoverer of the New World

“Ancient Italy” and “Modern Italy” both about 1632/33 by Luca Holstenio who imagined some differences in physical geography as the difference between the two deltas of the Po River. Holstenio's sources for modern Italy date to late sixteenth and early seventeenth century

Before the entrance in the Gallery of St. Pius V there are four small maps of ports:

“Ancona”

“Venice” very similar to the city as it is today

“Genoa” rebuilt at the time of Urban VIII

“Civitavecchia” with a cargo ship that transports the Obelisk of Psammetichus II to Rome, later placed in Piazza Montecitorio

VATICAN MUSEUMS - GALLERY OF THE GEOGRAPHICAL MAPS (first part)

GALLERIA DELLE CARTE GEOGRAFICHE

1578/80 by Ottaviano Nonni aka Ottaviano Mascherino (1524/1606) for Gregory XIII Boncompagni (1572/85)

It is 120 m (394 feet) long

Ottaviano Mascherino also built the TORRE DEI VENTI (Tower of the Winds) visible from the gardens and from the Courtyard of the Pine Cone

It was built above the Gallery of Maps corresponding to the entrance area from the Gallery of Tapestries

From the Tower of the Winds astronomical observations were made that led to the replacement of the previously used Julian Calendar with the one still used in most of the world today, called Gregorian calendar in honor of Gregory XIII

Easter would thus coincide again with the day decided by the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD being the first Sunday following the full moon after the vernal equinox. From October 4, 1582 ten days were skipped going directly to October 15 to address the extra 11 minutes and 14 seconds a year that by 1582 had created a difference of 10 days

Catholic peoples adopted the Gregorian Calendar immediately and Protestants in the eighteenth century. In 1873 it was the turn of Japan and in 1911 of China

Russia was convinced in 1918, so that the “October Revolution” of 1917 would have been the “November Revolution” for us as it happened on 7 and 8 November in the Gregorian calendar

Yugoslavia, Romania and other Orthodox countries started using the Gregorian Calendar in 1919, Turkey in 1927 and Greece, the last to accept the reform, in 1928

“The tradition of geographical representations well attested in many Renaissance courts is profoundly renewed: contemporaries had to remain open-mouthed before a decorative project that allowed the pope, after the long journey into space through an Italy supported and guided by Christian faith and the Roman Church, to reach the Tower of the Winds, where the anemoscope and the meridian of Danti seemed to exert a similar symbolic control over time, letting one's gaze wander freely on the Latium countryside and ideally on the whole Catholic world, released by the great religious crisis of mid-century confirmed in its convictions” (Vincenzo Farinella)

VAULT

“Fifty scenes of miraculous events of saints” related to the geographical areas below (from the entrance: Sts. John the Baptist, Paul, Sylvester I, Pope Leo the Great, Benedict, Severus, Romualdo, Bernard, Peter Damian and Celestine V) and “Twenty-four monochrome scenes of Old Testament stories of sacrifice” 1580/83 by Cesare Nebbia (1536/1614) based on drawings by Girolamo Muziano (1532/92) with the help of many artists including:

Antonio Tempesta (about 1555/1630), the brothers Paul Brill (1554/1626) and Matthijs Brill (1550/83) and Niccolò Circignani aka Pomarancio (about 1520/98)

WALLS

“Forty maps of Italy” 1580/83 designed and laid out by the Dominican Father Egnazio Danti (1536/86

Painted by Cesare Nebbia (1536/1614), Girolamo Muziano (1532/92), Niccolò Circignani aka Pomarancio (about 1520/98), Giovanni Antonio Vanosino (1535/93) and the brother of Egnazio, Girolamo Danti, who died in 1580 soon after work began. Giovanni Baglione in 1642 erroneously reported the name of Girolamo as Antonio

The name of Egnazio Danti at birth was Carlo Pellegrino changed aged 19 on the occasion of his entrance in the Dominican order

He was one of the most distinguished scholars in mathematics and geography of his time and he had worked as a cartographer and cosmographer for Cosimo I de' Medici in Florence

He also had an important role in the commission authority that changed the calendar. His signature appears in the inscription of Salento

The maps are represented with the east coast on the right and the west coast to the left

 They are sufficiently accurate even if several have the north at the bottom and the scale is not homogeneous

The more precise areas are the Po Valley, Liguria, Tuscany and the Papal provinces. Less precise are the mountainous areas and islands

There are interesting representations of battles such as Cannae in 216 BC or Lepanto in 1571, or celebrities like Christopher Columbus carried on the marine chariot of Neptune off Liguria or “special transports” as the obelisk of Psammetichus II on a Roman raft later to be placed in Montecitorio

Six maps (Italia antiqua, Italia nova, Patrimonium Sancti Petri, Latium, Etruria and Sabina) were restored or rebuilt by Luca Holstenio (1596/1661) in the years 1632/37 for Urban VIII Barberini (1623/44) who also spread everywhere the bees of his coat of arms

Other adjustments took place under the pontificates of Clement XI Albani (1700/21) and Pius IX Mastai-Ferretti (1846/78)

“Italy was unified well before Cavour and Garibaldi played the big chance. The Country was unified not by politics but by history, culture, beauty, religion. For the first time in the catalog of the visual arts in the heart of the Apostolic Palace, this idea of​ unity takes shape so aware to remain unforgettable. For the first time it is offered to the wonder of the world with glorious and at the same time educational evidence” (Antonio Paolucci)