Talk:Catalan Atlas

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 28 August 2019 and 12 December 2019. Further details are available on the course page. Peer reviewers: Kathy.guiracocha81.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 16:57, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Requested move
Suggest that this page be moved from Atlas Catalan to Catalan Atlas.

"Atlas Catalan" is the standard name in French; but the standard name in English is the Catalan Atlas. (Compare eg hits returned by Google searches).

The body text of the article already almost exclusively uses the phrase "Catalan Atlas"; as do almost all the various links to this page. Jheald (talk) 22:47, 30 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Move has been carried out. Jheald (talk) 10:28, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Broken link
The link to Bibliothèque nationale doesn't work for me.--Wetman (talk) 01:11, 2 May 2010 (UTC)


 * I've replaced it with a link to a current online exhibit at the BnF (in French), and an archive.org link for a text in English, which was from an older exhibition, "Charles V and his time". Unfortunately, none of the images for the latter seem to have been preserved at archive.org, and there is no English translation, as far as I can see, for the former. The online search says that the old exhibition "Le roi Charles V et son temps" was still online as of 21 April this year, so it may be their server has just temporarily fallen over, and it might come back.  Jheald (talk) 10:31, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

Confusing description
A statement in the body text of this article says: "Unlike many other nautical charts, the Catalan Atlas is read with the north at the bottom. As a result of this the maps are oriented from left to right, from the Far East to the Atlantic." And yet all the images of the map appear oriented and readable with north at the top and the Atlantic on the left, Asia on the right. These seem diametrically opposed. 66.66.75.152 (talk) 19:52, 24 July 2018 (UTC)
 * It is a bit confusing. I think the images are in error; we do know the map's original orientation. I'm correcting the images. Pinkbeast (talk) 22:01, 24 July 2018 (UTC)

Catalan Atlas doesn't have a fixed orientation. Like all nautical portolan charts, it is made to be read along the coastline, the map turning as you go. The internal descriptive labels are of both kinds - oriented N-S in the bottom half, and S-N in the top half of the chart. Walrasiad (talk) 22:03, 25 July 2018 (UTC)
 * That was my first assessment of the situation. However, the translated material from the BNF at, which appears to be a reliable source to me (and should probably be added to the article as one) clearly states the map has a preferred orientation. (Yes, it's not clear to me how they know, or why it has a preferred orientation at all, but perhaps eg some detail on the reverse on the vellum sheets makes it clear.)
 * The bad news is that a chunk of the article is simply copied and pasted directly from that source and needs to be rewritten, perhaps adding a note to the effect that, as you observe, the inscriptions aren't in a fixed orientation. I can't do that right now but I'll do it when I can if no-one else gets there first. Pinkbeast (talk) 22:32, 25 July 2018 (UTC)

Shrug. The Smithsonian disagrees. It too asserts no orientation (Great Maps, p.62). Not sure where the librarian got his info. But who are you going to believe? A library website or your own lying eyes? The best you might say is there seems to be quantitatively more writing & images with north orientation than with south or other orientations. Whether you want to interpret that as "preferred" or simply happenstance is a judgment call. Walrasiad (talk) 04:11, 26 July 2018 (UTC)
 * A library website, not my own opinion - or yours. I don't know about you, but I am not an expert on inobvious (I know what you're going to say, but if the map does have a preferred orientation, that _is_ inobvious) features of 14th century cartography; and even if I was, I'd still need to produce cites to back it up. That's how sourcing works (and of course I have already provided one possible explanation as to features of the document my eyes cannot see).
 * However, since in the other part of your comment you have provided a source for "no orientation", perhaps we can go with that. Google won't show me page 62, so perhaps you would be so kind as to provide a short excerpt of the pertinent text? Pinkbeast (talk) 07:46, 26 July 2018 (UTC)


 * "Several distinctive features are immediately notable. First, unlike most medieval mappae mundi, this one has no clear directional orientation - the northern sections appear upside down when viewed from the south, suggesting it was supposed to be placed on a table and examined by walking around it.  Then there is the sheer amount of detail and drama, including 2,300 names, and many more mountains, rivers and animals. Finally, the map also lays claim to an important world first - the depiction of a compass rose." (Jerry Botton, Great Maps, p.62)
 * I've rewritten the article in accordance with this source and to avoid the direct cuts and pastes from the BNF. Thanks. I think the idea of the preferred orientation arose because of the later rebinding into a book-like form - since the two non-map leaves do have text only one way up, binding them with the map portions gave the latter an apparent orientation. (It's also the case there is a large body of text near the compass rose which is not oriented to the edge but "South up", which I suppose is why it was bound this way to begin with). Pinkbeast (talk) 00:04, 27 July 2018 (UTC)

Flag identification and WP:OR
The current "Description" section contains possible WP:OR when identifying certain flags with historical lands/states. I believe it's minor, but I spot-checked some citations that did not seem to verify certain identifications (e.g. for the Ilkhanate flag, and the Cathay flag seems to be mentioned in the cited source but perhaps not at the stated page), unless I'm missing something. I'm guessing this is unintentional: many of the "flags" found in Wiki Commons, often supposedly based on WP:PRIMARY sources like the Catalan Atlas (or things like the Book of Knowledge of All Kingdoms), have previously been taken for granted by editors for so long that they have become widespread assertions on Wikipedia; many have recently been removed or challenged after closer investigation. I'm not saying that's the case for all flags, but probably for the Ilkhanate flag (e.g. ) and perhaps others.

If someone could revisit these and check that the various identifications are actually supported by the cited sources, and make revisions where needed. In cases where the source is merely the atlas itself, please be mindful to avoid any interpretation or WP:SYNTH not supported by reliable secondary sources (e.g. just because a flag is in a certain part of the map does not mean we can safely assumed it belongs to a certain king/state that we think was contemporary with the map). R Prazeres (talk) 06:27, 13 July 2024 (UTC)