PSEUDONYM ”ANGELUS” ONE CHART SIGNED, ONE ATLAS CURIOUSLY SIGNED: WHOSE WORKS ARE THEY REALLY?

A COMMENT ON THE 1571 CHART AND 1575 ATLAS

ChANG/1/D01

The 1571 chart signed by “Angelus” is held in the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, Florence, reference Port.No 2. It is signed, “Angelus me fecit in marssilin, 1571”, and is certainly a Marseilles chart in that the only vignette is of Marseilles. The scale bars have a peculiar set of tail scrolls reminiscent of Joan Martines, but more intense squiggles. There is a Madonna and child adjacent to the signature. She is seated (?) on a rocky outcrop and has a halo, but the child who is nude has what could even be described as a turban on a particularly small head. There are numerous flags spread throughout the chart and it encompasses the west coast of Iberia and NW Africa eastwards to the Black Sea and the Red Sea, but other than toponyms has no further information there-on. For 1571 it is a simple chart as per ChANG/1/D01, when by now the explorations of the world lead to grander charts.

The Atlas dated 1575 is however a strange concoction of 14 folios, 8 with charts and 6 paper texts with diagrams. It is held in the BnF Paris as “Francaise 9669” and is obviously the work of two hands or one hand many years apart and thus stored for later use?
The 1571 chart although well drawn is not up to the standard of the 1575 atlas folios and it is therefore much later in production as the atlas shows a real neatness of cartography and script on the charts. It also has many Portuguese mannerisms and reading PMC volume 2, pages 121 and 122 alarm bells rang out loudly as in PMC it is suggesting that a 1573 Portuguese official planisphere was available in Marseilles to be copied in 1575 as an atlas. I discuss this later in depth with the ramifications. (Diagrams ChANG/1/D02 to D06, but see later.)

Thus a search required to be made of documents and charts/atlases to solve what I thought was a complete non-starter for provenance and resolve the pseudonym with no records.

WHO IS “ANGELUS”

The 1571 chart being signed clearly indicated that “Angelus” had received cartographic training, always accepting it was his original work. It is unlikely however good a draughtsman or scribe you may be that you could just sit down and produce a chart by copying one. It is normal to be trained and have a “pattern/template” and “toponym list”. That training being at least 7 years, but the 1571 chart gives the appearance of being drawn by an older hand, certain areas are drawn with an overfilled quill and the scale bars give the impression of being freehand drawn. Thus it is perhaps by a tired hand on an older person.

By analysing the 1571 chart it clearly indicates that the “pattern/template” used was highly accurate in that the Latitudes are clearly 90 Miliaria, the correct measurement, except where the Iberian coast is drawn as 75/80 miliaria from an original error in the master portolan charts. They suffered this error for over 200 years.
The vignette of Marseille would appear to be based upon previous charts vignettes of Genoa, but it is clearly shown as Marseille.

Thus to find a cartographer, the teacher, will depend on finding a chart from c1525 to c1555 which is equally accurate and the cartographer was situate in “Provence”.

CARTOGRAPHERS IN PROVENCE/MARSEILLE, 16TH CENTURY

From a text by Marcel Destombes dated 1955 entitled “Francois Ollive et l’hydrographie Marseillaise au XVII siècle” we read; “La Presque totalitie des cartes et atlas nautiques marseillais de xvi siècle- s’il y en a eu-semble perdue, a l’exception d’un recueil de 12 cartes signe en 1539 par GIACOMO A LAGNA TRAPANI et NICOLAS ISZOARD et d’un petit atlas nautique signe de JULIANUS GRAFFIGNIA compose a Marseille en 1568 (3), qui ne fait qu’imiter les productions de Baptista Agnese de Venise et vaut a peine d’etre signale. Le seul cartographer digne de ce nom signe: “Angelus me fecit in Marssilia” entre 1571 et 1575 0n connait quatre atlas de cet auteur. {(3) Marseille Bibl Municipale MS 1117}.

This 1955 text by Marcel Destombes has raised many outstanding items. Even Professor Astengo (HOC 3) commented on the lack of information. I know that the M Destombes archive is held in SHD Vincennes and the fiche states “Inventaire Analytique par le Matelot Monaque, 1995, 123 pages”. The archive is 26 cartons and 26 articles and unless the “Inventaire” can be accessed to determine if the 1955 text and its contents are discussed, then 12 Cartes and 4 Atlases are also missing! Would M Destombes have written that information if he did not have proof of their existence, but why did he not share the information?

Thus in 1539 there are purported to be two cartographers and in 1568 an atlas is drawn. Marcel Destombes gives no information at all about the 12 charts he states exist, but the atlas of 1568 certainly did exist until it disappeared from the Bibliotheque de Marseille, BMVR before their inventory of 1982. It was still missing in the new inventory of 2008. However a description of the atlas is available in the inventory of “Manuscrits De La Bibliotheque de Marseille, by Abbe Albanes, Tome 15, 1892, page 317” which describes each folio in some detail. It is only 6 charts and is thus not the forma for the 1575 atlas, but could it have been the forma for one or all of the missing atlases if in fact they ever existed?

Thus unless the details of the two cartographers and their charts can be found we are left with the only possible method of determining when “Angelus” was trained by a time line. By using the dates 1571 and 1575 and the fact that both the 1571 chart and part of the 1575 atlas are obviously by an older person we have a putative starting point.

Hence I have chosen to use the 1575 date as “Angelus” being 60 years old and applied the usual 75 year lifespan to three scenarios;
1) born 1515, trains 1525-1535 and is 60 in 1575 and thus living until c1590
2) born 1510, trains 1520-1530 and is 60 in 1575 thus living until c 1585
3) born 1505, trains 1515-1525 and is 60 in 1575 thus living until 1580.

Each step is merely 5 years but each allows for the two cartographers we are told were known in Marseilles to be able to train “Angelus” in the art of cartography. The 1539 date is thus a ‘terminus ad quem’ for training and a ‘terminus a quo’ for “Angelus”. The fact that the cartographers had 12 charts in 1539 obviously means they were there much earlier, hence the putative dates.
But it begs the question, why he chose “Angelus” as a pseudonym? Having trained as a cartographer did He then become a Benedictine Monk at the Abbey of St Victor Marseilles.
Study the 1575 atlas as it contains a clue as will be shown later.

THE ATLAS FOLIOS; GENERAL COMMENTS,

This is an extraordinary atlas to be dated 1575 and signed in an extraordinary manner. Study the 1571 Portolan Chart held in Florence and it is immediately obvious that they are not the same cartographer, unless the 1571 chart as I have already premised is by a much older “Angelus” and the atlas by a young proficient cartographer. There is the possibility that it is by “Angelus” a much younger “Angelus”, but would he store this atlas for some 20 or 25 years and use it after drawing the 1571 chart which is less expansive in its geography?

ChANG/1/D02

However, note that the first 5 folios of the atlas are drawn similarly, but the last 3 folios are different in that they do not have the fancy scale bars, they are plain and set at an angle and along the edge of these three charts we find a latitude scale which is drawn as per the scale on the Domingos Teixeira 1573 chart. The first five charts have a plain latitude scale. Thus it is perhaps now two atlases joined as one

ChANG/1/D03

ChANG/1/D04

ChANG/1/D05

ChANG/1/D06

In PMC, Cortesao and La Mota wrote concerning the Domingos Teixeira planisphere of 1573 as follows; “Kammerer has drawn attention to a curious fact which leads to the conclusion that the planisphere was in Marseilles in 1575. This is the close analogy between this and the three charts of an atlas signed, “Angelus me fecit in Massilia 1575”, which belonged to the Academie de Marseilles and is now in the Bibliotheque Nationale Paris, with the classmark “mss francais 9669”. The affinity is obvious, not only in the design but in the nomenclature and even in the décorative details, leaving no room for doubt that Angelus consulted the planisphere of Domingos Teixeira which we are discussing, or another by the same author which was very similar, as seems to us less likely. To allow our readers to appreciate the similarity we reproduce two charts of Angelus (figure 12).
It is curious to note what happened to the legend relating to the voyage of Cartier, which Domingos Teixeira wrote at the mouth of the St Lawrence River. While he himself wrote:
“costa por honed entrou Jaques Cartel e saio do mar oaciona/Entrou por a gra baia” ( coast by which Jaques Cartel entered and left the oceanic sea/Entered by the great bay)

Angelus wrote on both the maps which he drew:
“Costa por honed entro a jaques tatel e saio do mar ouciana/canitrai por a gra baia” , and
“costa por ouide entro ajaques tartel esmo a omar ousiana/cuitrou poragran baia”

Since Angelus did not understand Portuguese the legend referring to the voyages of his fellow countryman has become almost unrecognisable! Consequently we are faced with a somewhat rare case where we know a Portuguese original and a copy made of it by a cartographer of another nationality—a servile copy, with all the inevitable accumulated corruptions of the Portuguese nomenclature”.

ChANG/1/D07

ChANG/1/D08

ChANG/1/D09

ChANG/1/D10

They included folios 9v-10r and 10v-11r (charts 7 &8) to illustrate the similarity as stated, and also the Domingos Teixeira planisphere as their plate 238. ChANG/1/D10

I have already commented that I find the fact that well known cartographic historians would consider a large Portuguese Planisphere dated 1573 to be available in 1574/75 in Marseilles to be copied as an atlas. In fact it is probably impossible to copy accurately the Domingos Teixeira chart as an atlas because the European Mediterranean area would require to be enlarged by 333% to form each page, and the profiles are not that compatible either.

But more important is the fact that Domingos Teixeira chose to copy the atlas which portrayed the “Double Headed Eagle” in Scandinavia which we see on charts by Jaoa Freire, 1546 and Sebastiao Lopes, 1565. D Teixeira is Portuguese working in Lisbon and thus copying the previous output of the “Armazem da Guine e India”, hence his planisphere contains the motif. But it also means that there were no doubt Portolan Charts from which the two atlases mentioned were drawn and are quite certainly therefore forerunners of the D T chart.

Cortesao and La Mota commented upon the two texts in Terra Nova, but omitted to mention the text on the Island adjacent to Borneo. That same text is to be found on Sebastiao Lopes 1565 Atlas as well as the 1575 Atlas, hence it is far more likely the 1575 atlas is originally Portuguese, or at least not drawn in Marseilles. Diagram ChANG/1/D11

ChANG/1/D11

FRISSONS OF DOUBT OVER AUTHENTICITY

At this stage I was convinced that the 1575 atlas was in fact in two parts and certainly not drawn by Angelus in 1575 and decided to locate the chart or charts the two sections had been taken from. Obviously I noted that the squiggles on the scale bars were also a Joan Martines feature, although not as overblown. I therefore commenced my search for the charts.

My study programme at the time was Jaume Olives, Matheus Prunes and Joan Martines and I had obtained some charts and knew of others. In the Biblioteca Vallicelliana Rome there are several Portolan Charts and one in particular was most interesting. In 1931 “Crino” had written a text and thought this unattributed chart was the work of Jaume Olives, whilst “Caraci” 1960 attributed it to Matheus Prunes or Joan Martines. I could not believe my luck.
The texts are; Sebastiano Crino, Le carte da navigare della Biblioteca Vallicelliana di Roma, 1931, where-as the text by G Caraci is “le carta nautiche nonime conservate nelle biblioteche e negli archive di Roma. 1960.

ChANG/1/D12

Firstly I obtained from the Biblioteca a copy of photos in the Book by “Crino” taken on a “phone” as it had not been photographed at the Biblioteca and noted it could be in the style of “Angelus” with the scale bar squiggles, which is no doubt why “Caraci” stated Joan Martines. I contacted the Biblioteca and told them of the possibility. However it was a very well drawn chart and the only other chart by “Angelus, 1571” is certainly not by the same hand, but the five folios of the 1575 atlas were obviously a match, and I decided to compare them by overlaying one on the other, my normal methodology. Diagrams ChANG/1/D02 to D06

However, to compare them I first enlarged the Atlas precisely to its given measurements supplied by the BnF Paris but as they were not all perfect I decided that the scale bars would be the preferred option. Then the BIB VALL chart was enlarged to a matching scale bar measure. Each of the five atlas page outline was then traced onto an A3 sheet and small marks in pencil were made to locate salient features, critical points, which would determine the accuracy. Then I transferred the tracing to the enlarged BIB VALL chart aligning them to the marks and traced off the coastal outlines. I obviously required to enlarge the chart as I was working from a professional photograph, not a full size print.

It was obvious that after the BIB VALL chart had been drawn the atlas was drawn from the same pattern/template and list of toponyms.
That leads to the following points which must be answered:
1) The Bib Val chart and the 1575 atlas five folios are drawn by the same cartographer, probably Portuguese using the same pattern/template; this I thought a possibility.
2) The Bib Val chart and the 1575 atlas charts are drawn by a much younger and capable Angelus, younger by some 20 years prior to the 1571 chart and hence Angelus has stored them to use after the 1571 chart is drawn. That I think is highly unlikely!
3) The atlas pages in the 1575 text are drawn by A N Other (x2) and Angelus has just used somebody else’s work. A theory I am inclined to consider correct.

Thus I had quantified that one part of the Atlas by ???, the 5 folios also had a chart originally, but not the last three folios. However by adjusting the scale of the Domingos Teixeira chart of 1573 to the atlas page scale it was clear by the three overlays produced that they were similar but certainly not a match. In fact I had to change the scale twice to approach a decent overlay of one to the other and thus I do not think the 1575 atlas pages were drawn directly from the 1573 chart. They were probably drawn from the same or a similar original no doubt in the “Armazem da Guine e India” as D T has used for his planisphere.

ChANG/1/D13

ChANG/1/D14

ChANG/1/D15

I also compared the 1575 atlas page for Europe/UK to the Joan Martines 1579 Atlas and again they are very close to being the same chart, ChANG/1/D15. I also compared the atlas page of the British Isles etc., to the 1550 and 1567 atlas pages by Joan Martines held in the British Library, and again it was a close match, but considering I have shown these charts and atlases all came from the Genoese beginnings and follow a similar pattern for over 200 years I am not surprised they are that that similar.

ChANG/1/D16

ChANG/1/D17

However, study the 1582 atlas of Joan Martines, chart 2, held in HSA New York and there-on are the three cities Venice, Genoa and Marseilles looking alike to the 1575 Atlas folio 5v-6r and having a single Flag, a fleur des lys. The scale bar also has excessive squiggles, and chart 3 of the same H.S.A atlas is the British Isles looking the same as the 1567 atlas and thus Joan Martines is just recycling the same pattern/template. But the c1578 atlas held in the Huntington Library as HM33 and unsigned but attributed to Joan Martines is a totally different atlas containing sufficient world detail to be either the prototype or follower of the 1575 atlas as it contains all the features required, but is not a matching atlas in its detail. If indeed it is by Joan Martines it also indicates that style is not always consistent and is possibly determined by the client’s wishes. I have my doubts regarding the attribution.

I was left at this point with the serious probability that the BIB VALL chart was drawn by Joan Martines, he quite often did not sign his works and part of the 1575 Atlas was likewise possibly his work. This was the theory of G Caraci in 1960. However I was not convinced entirely because the first extant work by Joan Martines is dated 1556 and if as I have suggested the BIB VALL chart was drawn some 20 years before 1571 then it is actually unlikely to be Joan Martines unless the date is nearer 1561, but that would preclude the first Marseilles cartographers from the picture.

But, the charts 6, 7 and 8 were Portuguese not drawn on Messina Sicily, and they are certainly not like anything I have seen from Joan Martines. Thus my only option was to consider they were perhaps pseudo Portuguese, that is drawn in their style by possible a Portuguese/Catalan cartographer with access to the two genres.

THE DOMINGOS TEIXEIRA 1573 PLANISPHERE EXAMINED

ChANG/1/D10

It was necessary to establish just what the Domingos Teixeira1573 Planisphere was actually as a chart. The setting out was two squares each 180 degrees per side and hence it is a “Square Chart” with latitudes and longitudes equal. For a Planisphere it is practically the only method of presentation acceptable as setting the longitudes properly requires a peculiar presentation from the Equator to the Poles.

ChANG/1/D18

The addition of the island in the west after the scale bar limit of 180 degrees to show how it wraps around to form the cylinder

ChANG/1/D19

To quantify the planisphere I have taken two sections, The America’s and Europe/Africa and using the latitude scale and the scale bars deciphered the inner form of the charts as shown on diagrams ChANG/1 D18 & D19. The line of demarcation is therefore set at 47 degrees west geographical which is a very acceptable position, given the laxity of the information of its exact position. The actual measures per degree are 90 Miliaria which is the norm.
As usual Africa is drawn oversize longitudinally and S America suffers the same fate but, as with many charts the Caribbean Sea and its islands is an acceptable geographical layout. Thus from 45N to 52 ½ S the latitudes are generally correct. Hence if the 1575 atlas is drawn from this chart we should expect that the same profiles and measurements will be seen.

I therefore returned to the Portugaliae Monumenta Cartografia text regarding Jaoa Freire and the storyline of his son Andres Freire departing (illegally) for Seville, Spain. He returned to Lisbon and again departs for Seville. A story line much the same as the problem Pedro Reinel had with is wayward son Jorge who had absconded from Lisbon to Seville whilst still a minor. The PMC text is fascinating and should be read.

Andres Freire and his charts and atlases have disappeared from the records. He produced them for sale as we are clearly told and hence may not have signed them all. Thus by c1546 his output may have spread far and wide to be copied particularly as he knew of the “Armazem “style and his father’s works. Yes it is a theory, but with no actual evidence available it is all I have to offer. I have searched the records in Seville and found nothing more than the items mentioned in PMC. I asked the Geographical Society of Spain who had published a book on cartographers working in Spain in that period, but they also had no records of Andres Freire. I was however baffled by one text I found in the Archivio General de Indias, Contratacion, 5469 N3 R57, which was about an Andres Freire dealing with the “Gefe de Squadron”, but this Andres Freire was a Galician Merchant!

I am therefore of the opinion “Angelus” in 1575 attested by his very poor script etc., is probably gathering information to fulfil the promise of a “Livre to Cristol Viguie” and has used what he could find in the Library of the Abbey of St Victor Marseilles before it was disbanded. He was making a “living” like so many others in the Abbey and it is thought that the library was dispersed finally between 1579 and 1591. A short history of the Abbey conjectures that when Giuliano di Pierfrancesco de’Medici was Abbot from 1570 to 1588, he broke up the library to please Catherine de’Medici, and it is likely that all or many of the books became the property of the King. The history of the Abbey is not very kind to the monks there-in at this time in the century.

The timing could not be more appropriate and even the last page of the atlas has a drawing of the coat of arms of Henry III, a crown surmounting 3 fleur des lys and the initials H H with a small vignette suspended below of a winged man holding a sword in his left hand and balance scales in his right hand standing on what looks like a fish on a line. The page is thus a caricature of the Valois coat of arms and possibly the growths on the rivers in the atlas and the sword in the Arm Hand on the attribution page had a meaning in 1575 we now do not understand, but given the circumstances and the caricature it is certain to be a send up!

Thus did “Angelus” make small additions to these charts in order to disguise the original cartographer and try to make them his own?
To confirm this, the King of France from the Valois Dynasty from 1574 to1589 was Henry III. Henry IV of Navarre of the House of Bourbon followed, but Marseilles was also a noted Huguenot centre and July 23/24 1572 witnessed the St Bartholomew day massacre of them.

Thus also the attribution page showing the arms of Henry III as the attached diagram of them clearly illustrates and “Angelus” thought it important enough to use it twice.

THE ATLAS PAGES WHICH ARE TEXT WITH DIAGRAMS DESCRIBED

ChANG/1/D20

Folio 1r; Compass Rose-adjusted. Diagram ChANG/1/D20= 4 folios

The compass rose serves two functions; the first and obvious are six of the eight main directions with the North and South being named Tete and Pie. Thus we read, Tete, Nodest, Lest, Suest, Pie, Sourdis, Oest and Nordiest. Within the compass circle are a series of numbers which are the positions of the Guard Stars for the Celestial North Pole in terms of altitude which allow the viewer to know where that mythical point is. They are, ajoute trios; ajoute trios e demi; ajoute ung et demi; otesdemi; otes trios; otes trios et demi; otes ung et demi and ajoute demi. ( I had to ask if the g was a medieval addition to words)

Professor EGR Taylor in her text “The Haven Finding Art”, p163 has an excellent diagram, No21, and text which explains what Folio 1r has written there-on. She states; “The star was always observed at one particular position of the guards, that is to say when they are east/west, and at the end of the explanation the instructor added that with the guards in the Head the reading would be 3 degrees to low , while the guards in the feet it was 3 degrees to high”. Thus the Folio 1r with Tete and Pie for Head and Feet is clearly stating its raison d’être.

Then in her text there are a series of diagrams which explain the guards. Page 145 states; “Telling the time by the stars (—-) had been systematized ever since Ramon Lull’s days (13thC). The observer had to know the midnight position of the guards of the Lesser Bear for each month (or better for each fortnight) of the year, this position shifting about an hour every 2 weeks (fig17). Supposing the Guards are approximately on the meridian beyond the Pole Star at midnight, then by the time they are due west of the star it will be 6pm; and at 6am they are due east. An instrument- the nocturnal- was later designed for observing these positions accurately (fig19), but sailors imagined a human figure up in the sky with the pole star in his breast. His head was above it (ie north), his feet below it, his arms to the right and left and the guards were described as they stood in relation to his limbs. For example, “Mid-July”, midnight in the right arm; end of July an hour below the right arm (fig18)”

FOLIO 1v; THIS IS A ROUTIER DESCRIPTION FROM CAPE SPARTEL SOUTHWARDS

ChANG/1/D21

This is in a Cursive florid script and contains information regarding the Atlantic Coast of Morocco and its various capes southwards to Guinea. In the centre of the text is a diagram of Cap Degueir. Diagram ChANG/1/D21.
Commencing in the north at Cape Spartel, the next is Cape Cantin and Cape Tallat before Gape Degueir, which is Cape Ghir/Rhir and the diagram in the centre of the text clearly illustrates that the author knew the shape of the cape from observation as the photograph clearly indicates. This also tells us that “Angelus” is using A.N.Others not copying part of a text held in the Library, unless in his early days he was a mariner and sailed that coast!

There is of course that chance “Angelus” as a young man was a seaman, wrote the Routier and produced the diagram of Cape Deguier having seen it?

The final Cape is Cape Blanc which is the start of the Bay of Arguin and the important Portuguese trading post. From here the directions are for the coast of Guinea.

This seems to indicate “Angelus” is using/copying what was an original Portuguese document translated into medieval French and Provencal. However “Angelus” has already been criticised for his lack of skills with Portuguese and I suspect it is all another’s work.

FOLIO 2R; A PECULIAR USE OF THE BENEDICTINE HAND TALKING METHODOLOGY

The diagram has at the head a three line text set over a Hand with numerous capital letters and some numbers applied to the thumb and first finger and the words “nonbre & comensa”. On the wrist are 8 “religious” days from the 18th January to 21st May and some are the earliest day of a year on which they can fall and others are Provencal festivals.

The transcription of the three lines is as follows (as best read ,Provencal French);
“Pour savoir la luno et date et nobre dose et feste morbisse de 3 bou 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10 mil lan marcob congonsion et autrob quaso per lou menuit comne vest es ysy por la man la primicro couple de ben savoir la ite comme vous vescez fau” (with apologies, French and Provencal).

On the wrist are the 8 festivals as follows;
suptegesma a 18 januox (12th night of Epiphany, 9th Sunday before Easter)
caramantran 3 fevriex (Provencal carnival of 3 days precedes Mercredi des cendres) which is no doubt Ash Wednesday following Shrove Tuesday
Pasque a 22 mars Easter day
litanica 27 avril
lensension 30 avril (ascension Day)
Pendegouste 10 may (Pentecost, 7th Sunday after Easter)
latrenitat 17 may Trinity one week after Pentecost
corpourpi? 21 may unknown?

The use of the hand with letters applied to each knuckle joint was developed by a Benedictine monk in the 13th century known as “Bonaventure”, who was in fact Giovanni di Fidanza and the “Monasterialis Indicisi” describes 127 signs used by Anglo Saxon Benedictine monks.
I was struggling with several of the above words but the last actually was unknown to me. I was certain about the rest but thrown by the fact that “caramantran” which is a decidedly Provencal Festival although ending on Ash Wednesday, Mercredi des cendres was given as such. I therefore requested assistance from a well respected Professor. He wrote, “I belong to a generation that has been trained to <<lengo Provencau>>, although the dialectical one from Avignon, but in this case Litugric calendar ( rather than Provencal feasts) are meaningful.
The text you are presenting is (as the previous one) a strange mixture of some French words and much more Provencal, which I would say rather Western than Eastern.
It is rather Lingo d’Oc.
I can read the 6th one as Pentecost (Pendegouste)
and the 7th one as Trinity (latrenitat) which normally takes place one week after Pentecost.
I cannot understand the abbreviations used for the 8th one”.

FOLIO 2V IS BLANK.

Next follows the 8 charts of the atlas as folios 3v to 11r.

FOLIO 11v THE ATTRIBUTION FOLIO. Diagram CHANG/1/D20

Upon this sheet of paper we see two blazons one each side of the Madonna with Child, both having golden halos and standing on a crescent feature.

The blazon on the left is the well dressed arm holding a sword upright which is surmounted by a crown. The sword appears to have shoots growing out of its blade and is possibly one of “Angelus’s” caricatures as the King Henry III had no offspring to follow him and the crown passed from the Valois Dynasty to the Bourbon Dynasty. The right hand blazon depicts the three fleur des lys of the Valois dynasty.
The actual attribution text is within a scale bar form and has some peculiarities in the script. After his pseudonym the letter N is drawn reversed, the letter S is a reversed to a 3 and the word “est” has obviously been missed or not catered for in the length of the forma used. But intriguingly the 1575 is not contiguous with the script it is minor compared to the text. It is not a convincing date given the heavy script.

COMMENT. The Cross of Burgundy has been used by the Spanish Tercios Regiments of the time because Philip 1st of Spain who married the daughter of the Catholic Monarchs and was from Burgundy. The Cross is drawn with many barbs which are the same as the barbs on the sword just discussed and thus could be another of “Angelus” jokes.

FOLIO 12; Diagram ChANG/1/D22= this covers 4 folios also

The description above the diagram explains how the Guard stars can be used with the hour of Midnight and their positions at various times of the year.
The diagram itself has three “rings: The outer are the positions of the Guard stars at times of the year with little diagrams indicating how they will be observed. Note they are anti clockwise starting from the East. The numbers running around the actual ring, outside of it, are the Regiment of the Leagues from the fact that one degree of latitude equals 17 ½ leagues and if you are sailing any of the 11 ¼ degree compass points off due north/south then to achieve a degree of latitude the distances are as shown from the 17 ½ to 88 Leagues.

The lower sentence is the time difference from the end of November to the end of December for the Guard stars.

ChANG/1/D22

FOLIO 13

The sheet is headed; 1576 a la max le 3 Decembre a 30 degrees ½.

The text is basically the diminuation of the Moon during its monthly period and is based on a 15 day cycle with an example at the end. It appears to be a Provencal text mixed with medieval French. The moon has a c29 ½ day cycle and there is one Full Moon and one New moon each month.

FOLIO 14

This table commences in 1577 and gives the 19 year lunar cycle before the Moon arrives at the same point in the Heavens as seen from Earth and the 19 year cycle begins again.

FOLIO 15, Diagram ChANG/1/D22

This is in fact adhered to the back cover and is no doubt meant to be the Coat of Arms of the Valois Dynasty as already discussed. It can be seen that it was marked out with a scribing tool and then drawn in ink. However instead of a caricature of the winged figure the actual vignette has the Angel Michael slaying the Dragon and not a cod piece adorned figure with sword and scales of justice riding on a tethered fish!
If we could discern what “Angelus” means I am sure it would be hilarious.

ARE THE CHARTS AT ALL COMPATABLE

Finally the 1571 “Angelus” chart , diagrams ChANG/1/D23 & D24, are analysed as discussed already and putative latitudes and longitudes are appended.
The Biblioteca Vallicelliana chart is similarly analysed and the putative Latitudes and Longitudes appended as Diagrams ChANG/1/D25 & D26 indicate.
To actually quantify the differences Diagrams ChANG/1/D27 & D28 set one on the other with equal scale bars and as expected they are similar but certainly not drawn from the same pattern/template.
Thus the “Angelus” chart is no doubt taken from a Marseilles original whilst the BIB VALL chart is of the Majorcan/Sicilian school.

ChANG/1/D23 & 24

ChANG/1/D25 & 26

ChANG/1/D27 & 28

CONCLUSIONS

Without the proofs from the Marcel Destombes archives I cannot confirm that “Angelus” was taught be either of the named cartographers and I find it very strange that there appears to be no record of them, of the 12 charts, of the four atlases mentioned, and thus I am afraid to say perhaps Marcel Destombes obtained this by hearsay and thus could not confirm it in his text or subsequent texts.

My overall conclusion must be that “Angelus” had drawn the 1571 chart, but the rest is a fraudulent attribution. He has simply borrowed as much as possible from the archives and cobbled together an atlas.

Part of that atlas is by Joan Martines but who wrote the Sailing Directions for the west coast of Africa is again an unknown. I carried out extensive searches and found nothing the same.

I also think that as the end of the Monastery was nigh “Angelus” was gaining whatever he could whilst it was possible.

I have written many conclusions in the foregoing text and they need not be repeated here.

Finally I would like to praise both the BMVR Marseille and at the Archives13, Marseille for their assistance and going the extra mile in what was a marathon exercise to try and solve the riddle that is “Angelus”.