Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/File:Jorge Aguiar 1492 MR.jpg

Portolan chart by Jorge d Aguiar

Voting period is over. Please don't add any new votes. Voting period ends on 19 Dec 2010 at 00:14:10 (UTC)

Original - Reproduction of Jorge de Aguiar's chart of the Mediterranean, Western Europe and African Coast (1492). The oldest known signed and dated chart of Portuguese origin. Size of the origial: 1030 x 770 mm (Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, University of Yale, New Have, USA).

Reason

One of the very few high quality reproductions of portolan charts available in Commons

Articles in which this image appears

Portolan chart

FP category for this image

Wikipedia:Featured pictures/Diagrams, drawings, and maps/Maps

Creator

Jorge de Aguiar (1492)

• Support as nominator --Alvesgaspar (talk) 00:14, 10 December 2010 (UTC)
• Support per nom. Not a term I'd heard of. Noodle snacks (talk) 06:53, 10 December 2010 (UTC)
• Support fascinating. Purpy Pupple (talk) 08:14, 10 December 2010 (UTC)
• Comment Is the orientation correct? Or should it be rotated 90 degrees clockwise? SMasters (talk) 09:46, 10 December 2010 (UTC)
  • I thought the same thing too, but then a closer inspection reveals that there appear to be words oriented in all kinds of directions so I suppose the orientation doesn't really matter. Purpy Pupple (talk) 10:59, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

It appears to have a heading at the top (now left). Also, if it was rotated, half of it need not be read upside down, but sideways. SMasters (talk) 13:01, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

• Info -- This is the common modern way of depicting the portolan charts, with the north-south axis of the Mediterranean shown as a vertical. At the time, there was no 'correct way' of orienting nautical charts: they were put in the positions that best fitted the present navigational use on board. As in all charts of this type, the geographical names were written perpendicularly to the coastline, as to avoid hiding important information, and their orientation changed throughout the chart, according to the orientation of the coastlines. Alvesgaspar (talk) 13:50, 10 December 2010 (UTC)
• Support Thanks for the explanation. It is fascinating indeed! SMasters (talk) 03:21, 11 December 2010 (UTC)
• Support cool. Nergaal (talk) 18:30, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Promoted File:Jorge Aguiar 1492 MR.jpg --Makeemlighter (talk) 05:08, 19 December 2010 (UTC)