La prospettiva della terra di Bramante, alla vigilia della scoperta delle Americhe

Abstract

In 1491 Bramante painted the image of a spherical terrestrial globe, emblematic topic for the humanist philosophy of the 15^th century, after the rediscovery, at the beginning of the century, of Ptolemy’s Geography, illustrated through planispheres where lands described are Eurasia and a part of Africa. After 1490 the circumnavigation of the Southern end (-35°) of the African continent was conducted by the Portuguese allowing for the realization of new planispheres. First examples of these were contaminated by previous misleading planispheres released by Bartolomeo Colombo, where the Cape of Good Hope was situated at 45° South latitude and the Eastern Asian region was extended. The goal of misleading planispheres was to obtain a fleet of ships from the King of Spain for reaching China across the Atlantic Ocean, rather than the Indian Ocean. Bramante’s painting testifies to the interest of the Milanese Court towards the news concerning the circumnavigation of the Southern end of Africa (-45°). Moreover, this painting also offers an interpretation of the 3^rd projection explained in the 7^th volume of Geography. The painting could not conform to well-known constructions of architectural perspectives, but probably this work found its scientific base in the perspective image of the circumferences marked on the models of the terrestrial globe (equator and tropics) to which images of the lands were referred. Bramante must have had a terrestrial globe to be used as a model.