Hand Drawn Portolan of the Caspian Sea of 1519 by Vesconte Maggiolo

Abstract

Research objectives. To conduct a detailed comparative analysis of the toponymic source known as the "Hand Drawn Portolan of the Caspian Sea (1519)" by Vesconte Maggiolo, and to ascertain the range and chronology of its sources.

Research materials. At the turn of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, a handful of navigational maps — portolan charts — were produced in Italy that contained reasonably precise outlines of the Caspian shoreline. The present portolan surpasses all earlier works in the precision with which it renders the topographical realities of the region. The quality of the map we are examining was not exceeded until the seventeenth century, after Peter I's hydrographic expeditions. The high level of shoreline precision also strongly suggests that the map was based on authentic topographical input. Maggiolo's map contains 136 geographical names.

Results and novelty. For the first time in Russian scholarship, we present a comparative-historical analysis of the toponymic material of the hand drawn portolan of the Caspian Sea produced in 1519 by the well-known Genoese cartographer Vesconte Maggiolo. In the course of the analysis we show a correlation between individual toponyms of the Western Caspian region and the accounts of Timurid authors and local sources describing Tamerlane's military campaigns in the region. Italian cartographic material of the fifteenth–sixteenth centuries also supports the existence of two Sarays. On the basis of the portolan we studied, we conclude that this nautical chart bears a strong resemblance to the portolan from the island of Lesina (Croatian name: Hvar) — i.e. the "Lesina Portolan" — while also containing elements absent from that chart which are typical of the depictions of the Caspian Sea in the works of the Majorcan cartographic school, in the Mappamondo of Fra Mauro, and in the Egerton MS 73 and Egerton MS 2803 charts. The analysis we carried out also shows that Maggiolo's command of the geographical realities of the Caspian improved between 1516 and 1519. In our view, this is explained by his having become acquainted, in that interval, with the protograph of the "Lesina Portolan", which had been compiled within the Venetian cartographic school in the first half of the fifteenth century and reflects the historical realities of the turn of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The study of the toponymic material of Maggiolo's chart thus allows us to deepen and systematise our knowledge of the development of the Italian cartographers' understanding of the Caspian region.

Portolan available as Public Domain at Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Cod.icon. 135, fol. 8.

Keywords: Vesconte Maggiolo, portolan, maps, Caspian Sea, place names, Genoese, Venetians, Franciscans, Saray, Caucasus, Iran, Azerbaijan, coast of Kazakhstan, coast of Turkmenistan, Fra Mauro, sources, protograph.

Acknowledgements. We would like to express our gratitude to Roman Hautala (Senior Research Fellow at the Marjani Institute of History of the Tatarstan Academy of Sciences), A.V. Dzhanov (Senior Research Fellow of the National Reserve "Sophia Kievskaya"), and Professor Sh.M. Mustafayev (Deputy Director of the Institute of Oriental Studies of the National Academy of Sciences of Azerbaijan), as well as to A.R. Ibragimov (IT manager) for technical support.

Introduction

The object of our investigation is the nautical chart "Hand Drawn Portolan of the Caspian Sea of 1519" (Mar Caspio Portolano manoscritto Genova, 1519), which forms part of a maritime atlas compiled by the Genoese cartographer Vesconte Maggiolo and now held at the Bavarian State Library (Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Monaco di Baviera) [54]. Maggiolo returned to the image of the Caspian more than once. In 1504 he included it in a parchment planisphere known conventionally as the "Fano Atlas" [56, p. 6–7]. Later, in 1516, in Naples, he compiled the "World Chart, from the Eastern Coasts of America to India" [64], a photograph of a fragment of which we have also used in our research. It is specifically the "Hand Drawn Portolan of the Caspian Sea of 1519" that drew our attention because of its rich toponymic material along a comparatively accurate Caspian shoreline. It is noteworthy that the contours of the sea's shoreline are represented in a similar manner on the Caspian chart from the island of Lesina (hereafter "Lesina Portolan") [46, p. 272–278] and on the portolans Egerton MS 73, from the Venetian Cornaro Atlas of 1489 [44], and Egerton MS 2803 [9, p. 35]. The authorship of the latter has also been attributed to Maggiolo, but this attribution met with the substantiated objections of L. Bagrow and M. Ferrar [41, p. 10; 47]. In the opinion of the archaeologist I.V. Volkov, the shoreline depictions on these charts share a common source — "authentic surveys of the Caspian made in the middle of the fourteenth century" [9, p. 25]. Their accuracy was not surpassed until the eighteenth century [9, p. 18]. We would add that the outline of the Caspian Sea on the Kunstmann II chart — likewise dated to the beginning of the sixteenth century and attributed to Amerigo Vespucci [58, p. 36–37] — bears a noticeable similarity to the shoreline of the portolans listed above, although its dilapidated state makes it impossible to discern most of the toponyms along the Caspian coast [52]. The relatively limited fame of these Caspian charts can be explained by the fact that the Italian merchants preferred to conceal the information they had gathered from potential competitors [41, p. 8].

Not being professional geographers, we shall concentrate our principal attention on the toponymic material of the "Hand Drawn Portolan of the Caspian Sea of 1519", which significantly supplements and refines our knowledge of the Caspian region in the late Middle Ages. We stress that the toponymic material of the "Hand Drawn Portolan of the Caspian Sea of 1519" has not until now been the subject of any special study. For ease of comparative analysis we will draw on the Lesina Portolan mentioned above and on the charts of the Egerton collection, indicating the readings of toponyms they contain in boldface in parentheses after the Maggiolo variant. Naturally, we will also compare the geographical names in question with the toponymy of the charts of the Majorcan school, and first of all with its chief masterpiece, the Catalan Atlas of 1375. However, the serious differences between these charts and Maggiolo's portolan take us away from the main line of our enquiry and call for treatment in a separate work. In the present article we have confined ourselves to a selection of the most obvious parallels.

A significant portion of the inscriptions on Vesconte Maggiolo's portolan begins with lowercase letters. The compass rose placed at the centre of the Caspian divides the space into thirty-two traditional rhumbs. The needle points eastward, deviating slightly to the north. In accordance with the traditions of the Genoese cartographic school, the most important harbours are marked in red [37, p. 149]. The inscriptions on the chart have mutually opposing orientations: along the western shore they read towards the south, and along the eastern shore towards the north. Taking as our reference point so well-known a locality as Astrakhan, we shall proceed to analyse the toponymy from there, moving from left to right.

Toponymic analysis

Gitarcan (Lesina Portolan: Gittarcan; Egerton MS 73: asiticam; Egerton MS 2803: asiricam) — Hajji-Tarkhan, bearing in mind that before its destruction by Tamerlane in 1395 Hajji-Tarkhan lay on the right bank of the Volga, twelve kilometres upstream from the centre of present-day Astrakhan [14, p. 8].

Edill. fluuius — under the same name the river is shown on the chart of the Pizzigani brothers and on the chart of Fra Mauro ("Edil, which is no smaller than the Nile"), as well as in the Itinerarium Antonii Ususmaris cives januensis [19, p. 10; 48; 59]. In the Book of Knowledge of the World by Johannes Galonifontibus it appears as Hedil [51, p. 108]. This name for the Volga is still in use today among the Turkic peoples of the North Caucasus [23, p. 147].

Saray (Egerton MS 73: Sara; Egerton MS 2803: saroy) — the name of the capital of the Golden Horde [49, p. 452–453]. Whereas on his "World Chart, from the Eastern Coasts of America to India" of 1516 Maggiolo places in the lower Volga an image of three cities and of a Tatar emperor in his tent [64], in 1519 neither Saray nor Astrakhan is accompanied by such illustrations.

Doalanit cana (Lesina Portolan: Dolatcana; Egerton MS 73: dolala cana; Egerton MS 2803: dolarcaua) — the Davlet-Khan mausoleum complex near the village of Lapas in the Kharabali District of Astrakhan Oblast [7, p. 45].

Escy sary (Lesina Portolan: Eschisari; Egerton MS 73: stisaram; Egerton MS 2803: stisarau) — in the opinion of I.V. Zaytsev and I.V. Volkov, this name on the Lesina Portolan (and, by implication, on Maggiolo's chart) denotes "Old Saray" [14, p. 27; 8, p. 18], although other interpretations of the name exist [10; 38, p. 46]. For comparison, on the chart of Fra Mauro two Sarays are shown on the left bank of Saray (Saray Grando and simply Saray) [48], which likewise suggests a common source for all three charts.

Jango quarent (Lesina Portolan: Iangocuent; Egerton MS 73: inasachit; Egerton MS 2803: masochith) — Yangikent, i.e. "new town, new settlement". In the opinion of G.R. Crone, Yangikent may have been an offshoot of Hajji-Tarkhan after the latter's destruction by Tamerlane [46, p. 276]. The name could also have been given to the settlement by analogy with Escy sary mentioned above.

In the interfluve of f. Edil and f. Bianco is the inscription Agalos. On the 1554 chart of A. Freducci this toponym appears as ugalos [62, p. 21]. To the east is a group of islands labelled Tolentube, corresponding to the Tyulenyi ("Seal") Islands on the Caspian coast of Kazakhstan. The word tobe, which traditionally denotes a burial mound, in this context means — according to consultation with A.V. Dzhanov — a coastal cape.

The inscription Sary hoce (Egerton MS 2803: samancholi) corresponds to Saraychik. According to V.L. Egorov, the town was founded as early as the second half of the thirteenth century [13, p. 124–125]. The spelling of this toponym on the chart in such a form provides an additional argument in favour of Zaytsev and Volkov's reading of Escy sary as "Eski Saray" (Old Saray).

The hydronym f. Bianco — literally "White River" — was identified by I.V. Volkov with the Emba [11, p. 25]; but, judging by the surrounding toponymy, the reference is more likely to the Yaik (the Ural), which on the Lesina Portolan appears as Yayco. Notably, on the Egerton MS 2803 chart, opposite the group of Tyulenyi Islands two rivers flow into the sea — A[qua] Erdil and A[qua] Iorgont — the name of the latter accompanied by a faint annotation "alias Laxairu", that is, "otherwise Jaxartes" (Lat. Iaxart) — the Syr Darya. Judging by its position, this last hydronym corresponds to the Emba, yet on Fra Mauro's chart the Jaxartes flows into the Caspian much farther south than on Maggiolo's, even south of the river Ogus (Oxus), next to the town Organça nuova [48].

At the mouth of f. Bianco stands G. de saraiocho (Lesina Portolan: Golfo sarayeco) — the Gulf of Saraychik.

The next toponym on the chart is taratar (Lesina Portolan: tartas; Egerton MS 73: tunhis; Egerton MS 2803: thentris); it may be compared with Trestago on the chart of the Pizzigani brothers and trestargo in the Catalan Atlas, as well as with Titeri on al-Idrisi's chart of the Caspian Sea [19, p. 10; 45, p. 29; 40].

Mageislao (Egerton MS 73: massilao) — the Mangyshlak peninsula, which is also marked on the 1367 portolan of the Pizzigani brothers as the town Melmeslach, and in the Catalan Atlas as Mebnemeselach [19, p. 10; 46, p. 29].

Next follows the inscription Asponey (Egerton MS 73: asomunento; Egerton MS 2803: asumeoucn to) — the name of a river flowing into the sea just south of Mangyshlak. The names on the charts of the Egerton collection recall the golfo monimentis of the Catalan Atlas [45, p. 29].

The islands Chisilusu (Egerton MS 2803: cilesu) — literally "red water" — and Alatube (literally "variegated summit"), as well as the toponyms Chisine (Egerton MS 2803: chisera), Montania de olcachan (Egerton MS 2803: monte de boscam), and Cariata (Egerton 2803: comba) we have not been able to identify. That said, objects bearing the name "Alatube" occur both on the Kazakh coast (on Mangyshlak) and on the coast of Turkmenistan.

The islands Botri cony (Lesina Portolan: Boca cori [reading by I.V. Volkov: 8, p. 21]) and Alatrio (Lesina Portolan: Alatao). G.R. Crone traces the root of the second name to the Turkic word atau — "island" [46, p. 277]. The toponym is phonetically reminiscent of the town Alaturlo shown on Fra Mauro's chart on the Central Asian shore just south of Chisine [48]. The similar rendering of these toponyms suggests that they share a common source.

The inscription M. balcan (Lesina Portolan: Mantagna de balcan) corresponds to the Greater Balkhan mountain range in western modern Turkmenistan. According to al-Umari: "This land [i.e. Mangyshlak — Yu.I., I.Kh.] is separated from the Jayhun [Oxus] by Mount Ak-Balkan, north of Khorasan" [4, p. 56]. The symbols M. and m. on Maggiolo's chart are abbreviations for the word Mons, "mount".

The toponym Carabogos (Egerton MS 73: caraboso de malus; Egerton MS 2803: coroboso) clearly corresponds to the Gulf of Kara-Bogaz-Gol, although on the chart it is not distinguished in any way from the other toponyms along the coast.

The next inscription is Rey-Ren (Lesina Portolan: Kerken; Egerton MS 73: cerco; Egerton MS 2803: cercho). It is curious that on the mid-fifteenth-century "Anonymous Catalan Chart" [9, p. 33], belonging to the Majorcan school, the toponym appears as roraiam. If we adhere to the variant preserved on the Lesina Portolan, the connection with the locality Kurkent on the Karta över Kaspiska havet med omgivande länder [50] becomes evident.

South of Rey-Ren we find the toponym Dargia (Egerton MS 73: tursia; Egerton 2803: turpoia), comparable with the name of the Darja peninsula and gulf marked on G.S. Karelin's 1836 chart [21, map 5].

F. Ogus — the Ogus, that is, the Oxus, as the western Europeans in the classical tradition called the Amu Darya — or, in this case, its former western channel, the Uzboy. On Maggiolo's chart the river empties into a large gulf clearly corresponding to the Krasnovodsk Gulf (today the Turkmenbashi Gulf in the Republic of Turkmenistan). Several unnamed islands are shown in the gulf, most probably representing shoals and rocks. The fact that the Oxus flowed into the Caspian had already been recorded on the Sawley Map of 1180 held at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge [55, p. 75]. The Uzboy problem is the subject of a separate substantial work by V.V. Barthold, Information on the Aral Sea and the Lower Amu Darya from the Earliest Times to the Seventeenth Century [4, p. 15–96].

At the source of the Ogus stands Organsa sivitas, that is, the capital of Khwarezm, Urgench [49, p. 547–548], depicted in the form of a typical Western European medieval castle. Note that its lavish depiction is a clear anachronism, since it is known that in 1388 Tamerlane razed the city almost to the ground and its inhabitants were transferred to Samarkand [4, p. 63].

Along the shores of the Ogus gulf are the toponyms Nergancy, Ogrica, Jaban Canar (Lesina Portolan: yasancanar), Piscatory (literally in Latin "fishermen"), and Jerutebasy (Egerton MS 73: charato bosi; Egerton MS 2803: charathbasi).

The name Nergancy (Lesina Portolan: Neyganci) is rendered on the chart in red — the colour used for ports and especially important harbours. Nevertheless, we have not found an unambiguous parallel. It may be compared with the toponym Norgauze on Andrea Bianco's 1436 Mappamondo [42], which is a distortion of the name Urgench. Notably, on Fra Mauro's and G. Leardo's charts, at the mouth of the Jaxartes flowing into the Caspian (see our remarks on f. Bianco above), the castle Organça nuova (Leardo: Organzia) is also marked [48; 53]. L. Bagrow explains this doubling of toponyms by the presence, in the southeastern Caspian region, of a river and a historical province called Gorgan (Jurjan), whose name misled the cartographers [2, p. 83].

The next toponym, Ogrica, is evidently connected with the name of the Turkmen tribe Ogurjali, which is also preserved in the name of the nearby island of Ogurchinsky [17, p. 371]. Ogrica in the form agrica is marked on A. Bianco's chart above a drawing of a castle with two towers [42]. On G.S. Karelin's chart the same area bears the labels "Old River Ogur" and two branches of "the former river Amu Darya, or ancient Oxus" [21, map 5].

Farther south along the sea come the inscriptions: Carat (opposite the inscription an unnamed island), Alatube (Egerton MS 73: olotibo; Egerton MS 2803: alatobo), Odatube (cf. Odati on A. Bianco's chart [42]), Rochibacao (Lesina Portolan: Kochbaclao; Egerton MS 2803: recabaere), Blaco (Lesina Portolan: achbaclao; Egerton MS 2803: arbaialico), Tercina (Lesina Portolan: terecina), Alamony (Lesina Portolan: Alamoy; Egerton MS 73: alamur; Egerton MS 2803: alamurcericho), and Chissilica (Lesina Portolan: Chissilica; Egerton MS 2803: salimen).

A conspicuous distance inland from the coast is Corasan sivitas, depicted as an exact copy of the castle standing for Urgench. It may go back to Mesiet Chorasian (Mashhad Khorasan) on Fra Mauro's chart [48]. The corresponding inscription on the Lesina Portolan is identified by G.R. Crone with Nishapur [46, p. 277].

In an interfluve between unnamed rivers lies the choronym M. de codeman (Egerton MS 73: mont de romam), correlated with the name Codemnie on Karta över Kaspiska havet med omgivande länder [50]. There follow: c.с. montduclau (Lesina Portolan: cabo c. monte) and m. de ataua (variant reading M. de Arauc), comparable with the Turkic word atau — "island" — mentioned above.

Farther west appears the inscription Lenardan Araua (Lesina Portolan: mantagna de lenartan), which may be compared with the name of the town Nimerdan on Gerard Mercator's chart [57]. L. Bagrow identifies this toponym with the town of Abaskun [2, p. 85], but the latter, according to L.S. Berg, had already been submerged by the beginning of the fourteenth century [5, p. 289].

Beyond this interfluve lie the toponyms: the still-unidentified Vellj bassar (variant reading Belli bassar) (Lesina Portolan: helibabar; Egerton MS 73: boillicazarra), and Anazen, comparable with daldozen in the Catalan Atlas [45, p. 29] and with Amazonia on the Sawley Map of 1180 at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge [55, p. 75].

Farther west is the toponym Sary mondran (Egerton MS 73: azadram), that is, the city of Sari, the administrative centre of the Iranian ostan of Mazandaran. The following toponyms, Amoy (Lesina Portolan: Amol; Egerton MS 73: amil) and Alany, correspond to the town of Amol and the Alam Kuh range in Mazandaran. We have not succeeded in identifying the inscriptions c. de monant (Lesina Portolan: cabo de monant) and m. de asagar (Lesina Portolan: montagna de asengol). The name Isola ostandar (Lesina Portolan: ibalegro ftendex [reading by I.V. Volkov: 9, p. 21]) can be rendered as the Italian Isola ("island") combined with the Persian ostandar (⁧استاندار⁩) — "governor"; so Isola ostandar may be translated as "Governor's Island".

The inscription Langaro is comparable with the name of the river and town Langarud in the Iranian province of Gilan, which played an important role in trade [49, p. 311]. The names of mountains in the southern Caspian region are m. de speniar and m. de diluman (presumably the Deylam range in northern Iran). Next follows an unnamed river clearly corresponding to the Sefid Rud (Qizil-Uzen).

Under the name Rest Guilan is shown Rasht, the centre of the Iranian province of Gilan — virtually the main destination of all Frankish merchants in the Caspian region. From here silk reached Tana and thence Europe [16, p. 106]. The inscription c.c. mont da taron may be compared with the name of the town of Tarom on the river Langarud on John Cary's 1801 map [43].

The toponyms c.c. m. Brsach and m. de tolony (Egerton MS 2803: bastagolani) are not identified. The inscription Geseir (Lesina Portolan: gesschex) is, apparently, a distortion of the urbanonym Kesker.

On the south-western shore of the sea is the toponym stra (Lesina Portolan: stra), reasonably identified by G.R. Crone with Astara [46, p. 276].

Farther along the chart are shown c. de bilendy (Lesina Portolan: casso de bilendy) — "Cape Bilendy" — and ponta de gisar (Lesina Portolan: ponta de gefsar; Egerton MS 73: ponta ciafa) — "the bridge [over] the Gisar" — toponyms without any unambiguous identification. Somewhat further north is the inscription m. de ganoco (Lesina Portolan: monte de ganoacho), phonetically similar to the name of the fortification Pir-Khanegah near the village of Gubaly Baloglan in the Hajigabul District of Azerbaijan; on the chart, however, it is placed significantly south of that locality. Next on the portolan appear Saig (Lesina Portolan: monte de sayg) and m. de maiocus (Lesina Portolan: monte de morochos hiec ... seprens magnum; Egerton MS 2803: monte de mauacasa), which are names of unidentified mountains.

The inscription clant spall(a/o) (Lesina Portolan: elat spaar; Egerton MS 2803: sauspara) yields no acceptable parallel. The next toponym, crech de malbairon (Lesina Portolan: crech de malbyron; Egerton MS 2803: monte de meldepera), can be correlated with the Bay of de Bayran [50], corresponding to the modern Anzali Gulf.

Under the name c. de lingoe cheiray (variant reading c. de lingoc cheiran) (Lesina Portolan: lingoe ceran) a cape is unquestionably meant near the river or town of Lankaran. Note the abundance in the lower Kura of toponyms ending in keran and geran (besides Lankaran — Ozhakaran, Orageran, Sevageran, Shiyakeran, and others). To these may be added the inscription ponta de chera from the portolan under discussion, which on Egerton MS 2803 corresponds to monte de couar.

The rivers f. daras (the Araks) and f. choors (the Kura). On the chart these rivers do not merge into a single mouth, as they do in reality, but enter a single gulf. At the Kura's mouth is the inscription Macomedoa, corresponding to the town of Mahmudabad, named in honour of its founder, the Ilkhan Ghazan Mahmud [5, p. 779].

At a considerable distance from the sea, in the interfluve of f. daras and f. choors, the inscription Jemia is rendered in red. In all probability, the medieval city of Zagem (Bazari), residence of the kings of Kakheti, is meant, located seven kilometres from the settlement of Aliabad in the Zagatala District of the Republic of Azerbaijan [25, p. 21–22].

The inscription cherges (Lesina Portolan: cheges) may be correlated with the name of the volcano Kyorgyoz ("Baku Ears"), twenty kilometres south of Baku [20, p. 162], visible at a distance of forty kilometres from the shore.

The toponym Sengilari (Lesina Portolan: samgelia; Egerton MS 73: sigilasi; Egerton MS 2803: sigilali) corresponds to the village of Sangachaly (today a township within the Karadag District of Baku), which in the Middle Ages housed the well-known Sangachaly caravanserai¹. Judging by its position, the inscription c. chenxecor (Lesina Portolan: chenxoor; Egerton: capo cuzicura; Egerton MS 2803: c. cucicura) denotes a cape at the mouth of the Kura — the Kurinyusku spit or one of the islands facing the mouth (Kyur-Dili or Kyur-Dashi).

The toponym chasian (Egerton MS 73: cazo) cannot be identified with certainty. The toponym boic (Egerton MS 2803: bouria) is best identified with the island of boil on John Cary's 1801 chart [43] — that is, Bail in Baku Bay, where in the Hulaguid period there stood a small fortress (citadel) which, in the opinion of some researchers, served as a customs post for seagoing vessels².

Organa (Egerton MS 2803: dogunas) — an island almost in the middle of the sea, opposite Bachu, i.e. Baku. Organa may be compared with the island Uranos mentioned by F. Soymonov [34, p. 41], and also with the name of Cape Gyurgan, connected by a causeway to the island of Pir-Allahi (on the chart — Piraloy)³. It is quite possible that the inscription irgun on the Absheron peninsula on Egerton MS 2803 also corresponds to the name Cape Gyurgan.

Baisaona (Lesina Portolan: samona; Egerton MS 2803: somouana) is phonetically reminiscent of Buzovna, an old village on the Absheron peninsula not far from Baku on the Caspian shore⁴.

Next come the toponyms Begey and Asson degarat (Lesina Portolan: Asonsagarat), compared with the village of Begemli in the Shamakhi uyezd of Baku Governorate, mentioned in a geographical reference work of 1913, and with the settlement of Jorat near the town of Sumgait in the Republic of Azerbaijan [20, p. 69, 117].

Sanbran and San Machy (Egerton MS 2803: samag) — the well-known Shirvan cities of Shabran and Shamakhi (today in the Republic of Azerbaijan).

Mordao (Egerton MS 73: marado) — the coastal town of Mordava, mentioned by Jan Struys in the list of places devastated by the Cossacks of Stenka Razin [18, p. 110].

Next comes the toponym Masmac (Egerton MS 2803: mucera; Lesina Portolan: mastiar and barmach) — possibly the result of a misreading of toponyms in the protograph of the Lesina Portolan. The high probability of the latter is suggested by the very absence from the chart of so well-known a geographical feature of the late Middle Ages as Mount Beshbarmak, which in the second half of the seventeenth century Jan Struys called "world famous" [18, p. 110]. On the Egerton MS 2803 chart, conversely, the choronym Barmak is marked as monte de burac (cf. bürang in al-Idrisi [40]).

The toponyms seges (Egerton MS 2803: suces) and ruoscan (Lesina Portolan: mostox; Egerton MS 73: suocs) do not yield unambiguous identification.

Valanic (variant reading Balanic) (Egerton MS 73: balmisi) — between this toponym and the sea there are two parallel lines, clearly denoting the mouth of a river. The best candidate is the river Bilbil (Velvele), at whose mouth a wharf was established in the second half of the sixteenth century. For comparison, on John Cary's 1801 chart the river appears as Balbala [43].

North of Balanic follows the inscription salamon (Lesina Portolan: salamox; Egerton MS 73: samira; Egerton MS 2803: samyra [cf. samüra in al-Idrisi: 40]), apparently going back to Siamon on Fra Mauro's chart [48]. The inscriptions on the Egerton charts suggest that salamon is in fact a distortion of the hydronym Samur.

Albania Grande — a castle at a considerable distance from the sea. This inscription is evidently no more than a tribute to the Ptolemaic tradition, but it is noteworthy that, by its position on the chart, the toponym recalls the town of Chabala on Fra Mauro's chart [48], which in antiquity was the capital of Caucasian Albania.

M. delexy (Lesina Portolan: monte de legsi) — the name refers to the early-medieval polity of Lakz in the valley of the river Samur, within which the Lezgin people took shape. The Golden Horde scholar Sadr al-Din Sulayman al-Lakzi, of the first half of the fourteenth century, is known [28, p. 36].

Derbant (Lesina Portolan: Porta de ferra; Egerton MS 73: debant; Egerton 2803: Debana) — Derbent. It is notable that, unlike the Lesina Portolan, on Maggiolo's chart — as on the charts of the Majorcan school and of the Egerton collection — the town is given under its Iranian name, rather than the calque of the Turkic Demir-Kapu usual on Italian charts.

After Derbant the chart shows the toponym M. decaitac (Lesina Portolan: monte de caytac; Egerton MS 2803: monte de gilan), that is, "Mount Kaytag", which refers to the well-known medieval polity of Daghestan — Kaytag [3, p. 121]. We note the appearance in the Franciscan annals of the name Kagdaken patria in connection with the devastation of the Friars Minor missions by Tamerlane's forces [63, p. 247].

Coan (Lesina Portolan: Coam; Egerton MS 73: cuuimo) — on Maggiolo's 1516 "World Chart, from the Eastern Coasts of America to India" the toponym Сim appears in this place [64]. It is possible that behind Coan lies a distorted form of the toponym Kayob (as read by V.L. Egorov) from the Pizzigani chart [13, p. 134], which there lies south of Derbent. A toponym of similar spelling — now, however, more noticeably north of Derbent — is also present on G. Leardo's chart of 1448 [53].

Omach (Lesina Portolan: nomach) — identified with Cape Boynak and the settlement of the same name (now the village of Ullubi-aul in the Republic of Daghestan). It is quite likely that in the protograph the inscription had the form boinach, but Maggiolo omitted the first letter, possibly because of the illegibility of its rendering in the source. As for the "m" after the initial "o", in the protograph it may have been not an "m" but the combination "in", which even in print — let alone in manuscript — resembles an "m" at a glance. Accordingly, in drafting a new chart, this combination could easily have been taken for an "m".

Sacasu (Lesina Portolan: Orastasu; Egerton MS 73: hera biancha) — judging by its position on the chart, this is either the mouth of the Shura-ozen or a designation for the southern branch of the Koysu. It is known that in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries one channel of the Koysu emptied into the Agrakhan Bay, and the other into the open sea [36, p. 561].

North of Sacasu, on the coast, is the toponym Comoc (Lesina Portolan: Comoc; Egerton MS 2803: Comoua). As obvious parallels one may cite the Franciscan residence Comuch in the Saray Custody in the fourteenth century [39, p. 627], the name of the Kumuch people in the Book of Knowledge of the World by Johannes Galonifontibus [51, p. 106], and also the episcopal centre Comech mentioned in a bull of Boniface IX of 1401, which Ph. Bruun and after him A.E. Krishtopa link to the ethnonym Kumyk (къумукъ) [31, p. 136; 22, p. 113].

The toponym Turcho clearly corresponds to the well-known locality of Tarki (Kumyk Targhu), mentioned also in Timurid sources [15, p. 354]. On Fra Mauro's chart this toponym appears as Tarcho [48]; in Vatican documents of 1373 and 1400 the Friars Minor mission Tarchis (or Tarchu) is mentioned [60, p. 243; 63, p. 247]. Also known is the presence in this town, in 1370, of the Catholic bishop Lazare (episcopus Tarcuensis) [60, p. 250]. The inscription itself is rendered in red, which on the chart denotes countries, major cities, and harbours.

The inscription M. de auaria literally translates as "Mount Avaria" and denotes a historical region in the mountainous part of Daghestan. Italian interest in it is explained by the presence there, in the first third of the fourteenth century, of a significant number of Orthodox Christians and even of a local "Khunzakh Catholicos" — Okropiri [35, p. 126]. It should not be forgotten that in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the Roman curia sought "to unite the eastern Christian churches under the aegis of Rome" [22, p. 111]. It is perfectly plausible that M. de auaria is connected with "Mount Aukhar" and the "troops of Aukhar" mentioned by the Timurid chronicler Nizam al-Din Shami in his description of Tamerlane's campaign against the North-East Caucasus [15, p. 304].

F. Coise (Lesina Portolan: coysoo; Egerton MS 73: F. Meriso) — the Koysu river (Kumyk Qoysuv — "sheep's water"). Opposite the river's mouth are the islands Jhite (Lesina Portolan: Yhite; Egerton MS 73: Jitolle) and Sicanantella (Lesina Portolan: Sicamantella; Egerton MS 73: suconi). The name of the first island refers to the Kumyk name for Chechen Island — Cheten. Notably, the sixteenth-century English traveller Anthony Jenkinson mentions, near the mouth of the Terek, "a fine island, called Chetalet" [1, p. 201]. In Kumyk the word chatal has several meanings ("rafters", "rifle rest", "boat frame" [24, p. 444]). Beyond the variants given in dictionaries, in everyday speech it has long been used in the sense of "forked, branched"⁵ — which correlates with the depiction of Yhite and Sicamantella in the Lesina Portolan, where the two islands are shown as the component parts of a single sandbank outlined by a dotted line and divided by a narrow channel. Let us also stress the existence of an island called Chatal in the Turkish waters of the Aegean, which received that name because its northern and southern parts are joined by a narrow and low isthmus. Alongside the island Sicanantella its other name is also shown — zemilla (cf. the island Shamilan of the "Arab Portolan of AH 1009" [2, p. 34]). It is highly likely that the toponym Sicanantella goes back to the name of the island gezira al-siakün on al-Idrisi's chart, which L. Bagrow correlates with the island of Kulaly near the coast of Mangyshlak [2, p. 78].

The first inscription north of f. Coise is Mons Soigan (Lesina Portolan: Mog soygan; Egerton MS 73: Minisagera). The toponym combines the French word Mons meaning "mountain", though it may also be a distortion of a phonetically similar local word and of the Turkic soygan (Kumyk soyghan, "one who has slaughtered, sacrificed, etc." [30, p. 38]).

North of the preceding toponym lies Gia Casar (Egerton MS 73: casana). It is quite probable that the "j" sound at the beginning of the word is a consequence of the aspiration usual in Italian before an initial vowel, and conveys a "y" sound. Reading the inscription as "Yakasar" brings up a parallel with the toponym Yakhsai-koltuk, mentioned in 1619 as the Aksai koltuk, i.e. the Aksai Bay seventy versts north of Tarki [6, p. 232]. In support of our comparison stands Yu.V. Goncharov's view that the scale of the Lesina Portolan [10], clearly identical to that of Maggiolo's portolan, is 1 cm = 75 km.

Mamechy (Egerton MS 73: maniela) — clearly analogous to Mamuçi on Fra Mauro's chart [48]. This toponym may be compared with the Franciscan residence Mamucci mentioned by Bartholomew of Pisa within the northern vicariate of the Saray Custody [39, p. 627]. Given its position on the chart, the toponym is readily correlated with the region of Mamuktu in the Zafar-Nama of Nizam al-Din Shami [15, p. 304]. In addition, in the inscription maniela on Egerton MS 73 the letter "e" is, apparently, an imprecisely copied letter "c".

The choronym M. de almach — this toponym is placed to the left of Mamechy and, like M. de auaria, is depicted as a mountain massif consisting of three bright and one faded peak. The toponym correlates with the name of the village of Almak in the Kazbekovsky District of the Republic of Daghestan, situated on the slope of the Salatau range. A.-K.-A. Bakikhanov, drawing on the stories of the peoples of Daghestan "preserved in ancient notes and legends", gives the following information about this settlement: "Emir Teymur, having subdued the Kumyks dwelling between the Terek and the Sulak, passed through the land of Michikich to the town of Almak… After strong resistance he took the town and destroyed it" [3, p. 80]. Notably, on the Egerton MS 73 and Egerton 2803 charts this toponym is absent.

The toponym Colados (Egerton MS 73: culados; Egerton MS 2803: calados) does not lend itself to unambiguous identification. We would also note the parallel in endings with Cape Candos tube given below.

The name Bailic (Lesina Portolan: baylic; Egerton MS 73: canico) recalls the Turkic word baylyk meaning "wealth". However, on the 1516 "World Chart, from the Eastern Coasts of America to India", instead of Bailic there stands Balic [64], that is, Balyk. The word balyk has two meanings in the Turkic languages: (1) fish; (2) fortress, town [33, p. 59–60]. The first of these correlates with pescatores (to be discussed below), and the second refers to the town Balkh mentioned in the Darband-Nama, whose ruler (hakim) was "Endirey" [27, p. 61, 98–99]. Adam Olearius, who had visited the town of Endirey, reports that "the inhabitants here are for the most part fishermen, who often… were on the river, as it is rich in fish, … they caught a great many sturgeon and fish similar to sturgeon" [29, p. 509]. At the same time, the presence of the toponym bailic also on the Lesina Portolan suggests that Balic on the 1516 chart is above all the local counterpart of the toponym pescatores.

The next inscription on the chart is bodrunc (Lesina Portolan: bodruic), which may be compared with the name of the island botri cony on the eastern coast of the Caspian. A precise identification has not been established.

The toponym pescatores (Lesina Portolan: pescador; Egerton MS 73: nicotoris; Egerton MS 2803: nichothoris) — from the Latin, meaning "fishermen". The name refers to the tribe "balykchiyan" mentioned by Nizam al-Din Shami and Sharaf al-Din Yazdi in the north-western Caspian region [15, p. 304, 356]. Clan communities with the root balyk (Kumyk balyq) are known among the Kazakhs [32, p. 480] and the northern (Aksai) Kumyks⁶. It is noteworthy that in the same chronicle by Nizam al-Din Shami, Zafar-Nama, the balykchiyan are mentioned alongside the region of Mamuktu — which corresponds to the toponym Mamechy in the portolan under study: "The whole region of Mamuktu, submissive and subdued, came to His Majesty. Then on the islands were regions which, making a veil of water and a fortress wall, held out; they were called 'fishermen'" [15, p. 304]. At the same time, given that three toponyms containing the root pescator are shown on the chart we are examining, they most likely denoted not a tribal name but groups of the population specialising in fishing.

Ascarey (Egerton MS 73: ustunora; Egerton MS 2803: istunora) — the name may be the result of metathesis of the adjacent consonants ks in the toponym Acsaray/Aksaray mentioned in 1390 in the list of Franciscan missions of the Saray Custody [39, p. 81, 629; 60, p. 95]. This toponym is also found in the name of the Ak-Saray settlement site in the lower Volga [7, p. 46]. It is also worth noting that on the "World Chart, from the Eastern Coasts of America to India" two points named Askaray are shown in the lower reaches of the Terek [64].

F. terch (Lesina Portolan: f. terchy) — the river Terek. This river's name in the form Terk is attested in the Kumyk epic tradition and is still actively used in the Karachay-Balkar language [11, p. 125]. North of the upper Terek runs the inscription Georgeania, that is, Georgia.

Caracor (Egerton MS 73: cara cola) — on the 1516 "World Chart, from the Eastern Coasts of America to India" it appears as caracho [64]. In the Catalan Atlas, in the lower reaches of the Terek, is marked Basciah [45, p. 29], comparable with the oikonym Absiyah-kent of the local chronicle Tarikhi-Kizlyar [30, p. 168], whose Kumyk name Karasu (Carasu) is spelled in Latin letters similarly to Caracor. Comparison may also be drawn with the well Karakuyu in the Kizlyar otdel of Terek Oblast, recorded on a 1913 map [20, p. 151].

Carnilic (Lesina Portolan: Camlich; Egerton MS 73: morcastrio) — if one goes by the name on Egerton MS 73, the toponym apparently denoted a small fortification. One should also note the presence, on the "World Chart, from the Eastern Coasts of America to India", of the fortress Terko in this geographical zone [64].

Candos tobe (Egerton MS 73: capo streudezi; Egerton MS 2803: codastruboti) — probably a cape that served as a landmark for mariners. For the toponym Chexech, E.M. Goldschmidt proposed the reading Keshek (Кешек) [46, p. 274]. It does not yield unambiguous identification.

The toponym Carello is either a distorted spelling of a local toponym, or an Italian calque of it with the meaning "cart, kibitka". For comparison, on Fra Mauro's chart, to the east of the Caspian, images of kibitka wagons are placed [48]. From carello and to the north, all the way to the Volga delta, eight unnamed islands are drawn.

For the toponym oranoschy (Lesina Portolan: onanasochi [onanasoki]), which in Russian transcription sounds like "oranoski", we have found no acceptable identification.

The next toponym, Caratube (Karatyube), literally means "Black Cape".

Further north comes the toponym Jrchalach (Lesina Portolan: Iarlach (Yarlak); Egerton MS 73: caunloco). In the opinion of G.R. Crone, this name corresponds to the lake Jarlatschi (Yarlachchi) in P.S. Pallas, south of the mouth of the river Kuma [46, p. 276]. At the beginning of the twentieth century, Lake Yarlashi and a tract of the same name were known in the Karanogai pristavstvo [20, p. 333].

Cassar de rochi piscatores (Egerton MS 73: caual de repi stentum; Egerton MS 2803: renahaiurepi) — according to G.R. Crone, a settlement of sedentary fishermen [45, p. 276]. Further on the inscription Carnis (Lesina Portolan: Caymis) is shown — on the "World Chart, from the Eastern Coasts of America to India" it appears as Camis [64]. This name may be compared with cremis in the atlas of Abraham Cresques [45, p. 29]. It is not impossible that we have before us a distorted spelling of a toponym meaning "reed thickets".

The toponym Chenderei (Lesina Portolan: cenderli; Egerton MS 73: caracadoli; Egerton MS 2803: caracandoli) resembles the name of the shallow Kenderli bay on the eastern (Kazakh) coast of the Caspian, which derives from the name of the fibrous plant kendyr [26, p. 51]. From the fibres of the Venetian variety of this plant, ropes and fishing nets were made.

Cretube — the name of one of the capes west of the Volga delta. Note the ending -toba in the oikonym Cotoba shown in this place on the Pizzigani brothers' chart [19, p. 10], which apparently also received its name because of the elevation on which it was located.

Farther along the north-western shore of the sea come: Coschesich (Egerton MS 73: conuque; Egerton MS 2803: conuqur); pangisala (Lesina Portolan: pangisala; Egerton MS 73: pensala) — literally "peninsula"; Jsola litube (Lesina Portolan: insula litube; Egerton MS 73: Sala lituba; Egerton MS 2803: jalatuba) — a certain "Lityube Island"; and ter gurmentube (Egerton MS 73: cumetigia; Egerton MS 2803: cenesiga).

chebenche — on the "World Chart, from the Eastern Coasts of America to India" it appears as chelene [64]. A parallel may also be drawn with Cubene in the Catalan Atlas [45, p. 29] and with Cabanco on the Pizzigani brothers' chart [19, p. 10].

M. Amassa (Lesina Portolan: mamasa; Egerton MS 73: mania; Egerton MS 2803: marna) may be compared with the town Mondasi on the Pizzigani brothers' chart [19, p. 10]. The feature labelled by this toponym on the chart is washed on both sides by unnamed rivers, which, judging by their position, are arms of the Volga.

The closest inscription west of Hajji-Tarkhan on the chart is Vlbachent (variant reading Blbachent) (Lesina Portolan: vlbachent), phonetically reminiscent of the toponym Bachanti frequently encountered on the charts of the fourteenth to seventeenth centuries [2, p. 25, 30].

And to conclude our list, we give the names of the islands in the Volga delta: caratube, tubetube, agante, adonte.

Conclusion

A number of toponyms from whose identification we have refrained have phonetic parallels among modern geographical features; however, given the debatable nature of such comparisons and the limited scope of this article, we have refrained from multiplying entities beyond necessity. The difficulties in correlating some of the other names on the portolan under study can be linked to the frequent distortion of Turkic toponyms and the calques of them made by the Italians [12, p. 299–300], as well as to the transgression of the Caspian Sea itself [5, p. 289; 36, p. 561], which rendered many of them obsolete. The principal cause of the difficulty in identification is, beyond doubt, the errors of the cartographers themselves, who drew upon varied and often mutually contradictory sources and who were sometimes further hampered by illegible handwriting. We can only hope that, thanks to future comprehensive and coordinated work by scholars from different disciplines and from countries around the Caspian, all these names will in time be deciphered and identified as well.

The "Hand Drawn Portolan of the Caspian Sea of 1519" surpasses all earlier analogues in the combined detail and accuracy of its rendering of the geographical and toponymic realities of the Caspian shores. Its level was surpassed only in the 1710s, after the hydrographic expeditions undertaken at the initiative of Peter I [26, p. 12, 22]. The comparative accuracy of the shoreline and the richness of the toponymic material — including along the eastern coast — on Maggiolo's chart permit us to reconsider V.V. Barthold's claim that "the goal of Genoese ambitions was Gilan silk; the eastern shore of the sea held nothing of interest for them, and, apparently, was little frequented by them" [4, p. 60]. Without in the least diminishing the role of the Genoese in Caspian trade, we would note that, after analysing a large body of cartographic and other source material, we have come to the conclusion that, at least in the second half of the fourteenth and first half of the fifteenth centuries, their Venetian competitors were at least their equals. The Venetian charts — not only the Lesina Portolan but also Egerton MS 73 and the world charts of G. Leardo and Fra Mauro — stand out for a high level of rendering of the Caspian shoreline. The chart of the Venetian Pizzigani brothers is, in its turn, a most valuable source for the historical geography of the Northern Caspian in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Noting that the toponymy on the portolan of 1519 under study is significantly more accurate than on the "World Chart, from the Eastern Coasts of America to India" of 1516, we are inclined to explain this by Maggiolo's fuller acquaintance with the achievements of the Venetian cartographers and, above all, with the protograph of the Lesina Portolan, which became the principal protograph of his own work as well. The majority of the names on the two charts are identical. Also similar — with some variation — are the errors common to them, most probably going back to a world map by A. Bianco, the cartographer who consulted for Fra Mauro, or to another of his works now lost. We stress that Maggiolo's chart surpasses the portolan from the island of Lesina only in a comparatively greater accuracy in the rendering of the topographical realities of certain features lying at a considerable distance from the coast. At the same time, even though the similarities between these two charts are far more numerous than their differences, certain elements of Maggiolo's chart bring it closer to the "Anonymous Catalan Chart" of the mid-fifteenth century, to the planisphere of Fra Mauro, and to the Caspian charts of the Egerton collection than to the Lesina Portolan.

The high degree of information on Shirvan realities possessed by the author of the protograph of the portolan under study suggests the possibility of his acquaintance with someone from among the merchants of 1390–1391, who travelled overland from Tana via Saray and Majar to Shamakhi [61, p. 20, 26], or with Giovanni da Valla or one of the companions who in 1428 built fusta galleys at Derbent [22, p. 120]. Besides merchants, Franciscan missionaries, who were active in the Caspian region in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, may also have served as informants of the Italian cartographers [63, p. 247; 39, p. 12, 13]. An additional argument in favour of their possible role is the very fact that the Lesina Portolan was discovered in the library of a Franciscan monastery [46, p. 272].

As regards the dating of the protograph of the Lesina Portolan — and, consequently, of the "Hand Drawn Portolan of the Caspian Sea of 1519" — after a comparative analysis of the toponymic and topographical material they contain against a broad range of cartographic and other written sources we cannot but agree with the view of G.R. Crone, who assigned its compilation to the first half of the fifteenth century [46, p. 275]. At the same time, it is clear to us that, like the charts of the Pizzigani brothers and Fra Mauro, the portolan under analysis reflects realities earlier than the time of its compilation. To illustrate this thesis, note that Urgench — destroyed by Tamerlane — is shown on the chart as a flourishing city. On the western coast are shown Mamechy (Mamuktu in the Zafar-Nama of Nizam al-Din Shami), M. de almach (Mount Almak), and also pescatores (fishermen / balykchiyan) and M. de auaria (presumably in the form "Mount Aukhar" in the Zafar-Nama of Nizam al-Din Shami), mentioned in sources and legends in connection with Tamerlane's military actions in the North Caucasus. The very fact that these toponyms correlate with the accounts of local and Central Asian sources, in our view, lends the chart additional historiographical value. Overall, the analysis of the toponymic material of Maggiolo's portolan allows us to supplement the information at our disposal on the historical and geographical realities of the Caspian region in the late Golden Horde period and once again confirms the good knowledge of them possessed by the Italian cartographers of the Renaissance. For objective reasons we have so far been unable to ascertain the name of the author-compiler of the chart-protograph of the "Hand Drawn Portolan of the Caspian Sea of 1519", but the ever-growing process of introducing new sources into scholarly circulation allows us to hope for an eventual resolution of this question too.

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About the authors

• Yusup M. Idrisov – Cand. Sci. (History), Lecturer-guide of the Daghestan nonprofit foundation “Historical Park ‘Russia – My History’” (31, Imam Shamil Ave., Makhachkala 367015, Republic of Daghestan, Russian Federation); ORCID: 0000- 0001-5326-9298. E-mail: [email protected]
• Ismail I. Khanmurzaev – junior researcher of the Department of Oriental Studies, Institute of History, Archaeology and Ethnography of the Daghestan Federal Research Centre of the Russian Academy of Sciences (75, M. Yaragskiy Str., Makhachkala 367030, Republic of Daghestan, Russian Federation); ORCID: 0000-0003-0645-3978. E-mail: [email protected]