ESHS/HSS Annual Meeting

The Codice Casanatense (Ms 1889): from the materiality of drawing to historical geography of Portuguese Empire in a global perspective.

• In Event: Making and Circulating Images, Their Impact and Influences on Different Fields of Science 1

English Abstract

Manuscript 1889, belonging to the Casanatense Library in Rome, is a historiographical unknown. Rare, it consists of a set of 70 sheets, measuring 30x42cm, totalling 141 pages. It contains pen-and-ink drawings and watercolours of human types from various parts of the Portuguese world in the East. The inscriptions suggest that the author was Portuguese. Studies by various scholars attribute the document to Duarte Barbosa, as the drawings seem to correspond to the travel diary of the Portuguese chronicler's journey to Asia in the early 16th century. However, a single mention of Lisbon in 1629 at the end of the codex, as well as its materiality and content, allow us to refute or reiterate the date of the drawings and the thesis of authorship. In this sense, this communication is an attempt at a material analysis of the document, understanding maps as cultural artefacts. It starts with the laid paper, size and weight, moving on to the visual architecture, codes and conventions of representation, analysis of inks and colours, drawing techniques, culminating in the study of the inscriptions and geography of the characters represented. The material analysis will allow us to date the drawing and question its authorship, and the geographical and ethnographic analysis will allow us to analyse the social and cultural insertion of the human types represented, with their distinctive elements. Fauna and flora, as well as geographical elements, will be analysed in scenes referring to various parts of the world, from the Red Sea to China.

Author

• Beatriz Bueno, FAU-USP - Faculdade de Arquitetura e Urbanismo e de Design da Universidade de São Paulo