The 'Significant Names' analysis starts with those that Vesconte added subsequently to his earliest surviving treatment of the area concerned: in other words 1311 for the central and eastern areas, and 1313 for the western Mediterranean and the Atlantic coasts. This was done out of a conviction in the early 1980s (to which I still hold) that findings would be secure only if they were based on dated or confidently datable charts. However, since publication of my Chapter in 1987 the date of the '1325/1330' Dalorto chart has been convincingly read as 1330 by Pujades, while the '1408 Pasqualini' atlas was re-designated by Falchetta as a work of 1448 and ascribed to the already known chartmaker Nicolò Nicolai. Falchetta also contends that the '1373' Pizzigani atlas should be considered instead as 1373-83. Add further that the 'c.1325' Vesconte-Sanudo atlas in the British Library contains a dated letter of 1330, which may or may not provide its true date [see Anonymous works and the question of their attribution to individual chartmakers or to their supposed workshops], and it can be seen that even such supposedly firm foundations can prove unreliable.

There are no certainties at all for the antecedents to the as yet unchallenged date of 1311 attached to Vesconte's earliest surviving work and the first portolan chart to declare the year it was made. Even though there is little agreement about their dating, two unsigned charts have been generally considered to pre-date Vesconte. These are the Carte Pisane and the Cortona chart, which Vera Armignacco first described in 1957. I continue to support their early dating, as described, with some detail, on the 'Attributions' page [Anonymous works and the question of their attribution to individual chartmakers or to their supposed workshops]. However, Ramon Pujades has already indicated that he intends to challenge their supposed primacy, and re-date them to later in the 14th century (2011, pp.269-72, notes 15-18).

Besides the periploi from the ancient world, and some recently identified medieval fragments [for citations of these see 'Chapter' p.382 and the supplementary notes to that: Portolan Charts from the Late Thirteenth Century to 1500: Additions, Corrections, Updates], there are at least two significant and broadly comprehensive written portolani that precede the 1311 chart. The earliest is the 'Liber de existencia riveriarum', identified by Patrick Gautier Dalché and published in 1995, with meticulous scholarly apparatus. Leaving aside the question of the portolan chart to which it is supposed to refer, or that may originally have accompanied it, the work's dating, to around the year 1200, is likewise being challenged. Though not proposing a major modification, Pujades considers a more probable date to be in the first decades of the 13th century (2011, pp.265-7, Notes 7-9). From a slightly later period we have the 'Compasso [Conpasso] de navegare', supposedly compiled between 1232 and 1258 (on the basis of the known construction date of certain Mediterranean ports to which it does, or does not, refer). However, this survives in a later version dated 1296, which leaves open the question of how faithful the text we have now is to the original, and whether it had been updated.

Few commentators would probably have expected to see an unbroken linear progress from the 'Liber' to the 'Compasso' and then, via the two charts that are considered to date from the end of the 13th or first years of the 14th century, to the initial Vesconte works of 1311-13. However, it may still be surprising that among the first large tranche of 'Significant' [i.e. later recurring] names that Vesconte added to his own initial listing, between 1313 and 1318, variants of over a quarter of those (29 out of 113) could have been found on the 'Compasso de navegare', apparently written some 60 or more years earlier. These are termed here 'Precursor names'. [For the details of these see Later introduction of 'precursor names' seen on selected early works (a Microsoft Word document).] The large work of comparing all the Liber's 1,100 latinized names against the 1,800 in the 'Table of Significant Names' was not attempted, but a check of the supposed early Vescontian 'innovations' showed that at least 11% of them were anticipated by the 'Liber', which perhaps dates from a century earlier.

Altogether, the 'Liber' includes at least 29 of the 771 'Significant Names' first seen on the charts after Vesconte's earliest coverage [see 'Precursor Names', Table B]. However, as only the names already identified on the three other source documents were checked, it is likely that that total would grow if a comprehensive comparison was made. The mid-13th-century 'Compasso' contains 71 of those names, representing 9% of the total. Likewise - confirming the similarities between the two unsigned charts (Pisane and Cortona), as noted in Armignacco's comparative toponymical listing - over 20% of the names found on one or both of them had likewise been omitted initially by Vesconte and added by him at some later point up to 1327.

Faced with no restrictions of space, those 13th-century texts could have included names for which there might have been no room on a chart. The totals given in 'Precursor Names', Table C 'Shared names on the four source documents' and in Table D 'Early portolano names not picked up by the Carte Pisane and Cortona chart' do show that the majority of the Liber's and Compasso's 'Precursor names' are not found on those two earliest surviving charts. 20 of the 29 Liber names were omitted by one or both chart, and 57 of the 71 Compasso names. A close examination of the two charts would be needed to determine how many of those instances might have been affected by potential toponymic overcrowding on a chart.

For the latter phase of Vescontian output in the 1320s the percentage of 'borrowing', if such it be, had almost exactly halved. Nevertheless, around one name in eight cited in the 'Compasso' anticipates the names we first see displayed by Dalorto/Dulceti in the period 1330-39, with a comparable number also visible on the Carte Pisane and Cortona chart. This process of much-delayed reinstatement continued throughout the period up to 1600, even if with an expected fall in frequency and, later, very intermittently.

In all, 112 precursor toponyms have been identified among the 'Significant names', each prefiguring what would otherwise have been considered as an entirely fresh introduction by the chartmaker concerned. Sixty-two of those had been noted as Vescontian innovations. In other words, almost one third of the names that Vesconte first learnt about (or first thought sufficiently important), after the time of his earliest surviving treatments, had appeared on much earlier portolani or on two (probably) earlier charts.

Are these findings important? Do they invite a radical reappraisal of toponymic transmission? Almost certainly not. They probably fit into the same general pattern of delayed introduction or re-introduction that is discussed under Dissemination time-lag below [see also the subsequent section on 'Historical time-lag'], as well as Rare & irregular names. Those are also dealt with in tabular form in Rare names, toponymic gaps and reintroductions (a Microsoft Word document) and above, in How did names get onto the chart?

It is quite possible that occasional details in these new findings may be misleading - failing to recognise a precursor name, or not giving due weight to areas of illegibility, for example - but the overall picture will be reliable. What it does is to underline the message that the indisputable dynamism of portolan chart toponymy is never straightforward, with separate traditions in the different production centres, and often with long delays in both the first and subsequent adoptions of a new name. But the fact that most new names, once incorporated into a specific chartmaker's canon, tend to remain there and be inherited by their familial or business successors shows us the value that practitioners placed on them. Even if that was no more than the unthinking adherence of a copyist to his model.

Such regular underlying inconsistency warns against placing weight on a single name, whether omitted or included. This is justified only when historical evidence can be found to corroborate a settlement's creation, abandonment, name change, etc. or where, for example, the silting at a river mouth rendered the port irrelevant for navigation.

As elaborated below under the Meaning of Names we should not assume that there is necessarily any novelty attached to the first introduction of a place-name on a portolan chart. Many, possibly a majority, will refer to natural features, while the ports or harbours involved may have been established long before. Viewed in that light, toponymic innovation must nearly always have been a matter of selecting from a range of existing, sometimes common, possibilities, unless it was a previously ignored name that was now considered, at least to that chartmaker, to have sufficient relevance for navigators. Having sufficient space for any additions must often have been a factor as well.

We do not know when one single name was first placed on a chart, nor by whom. We just have varying degrees of certainty, derived from examination of scans of almost all those produced before 1470 and a more episodic picture thereafter. But we must never forget that what survives is a minute and random sample of what had been produced. Nor do we know why a name was first inserted into the existing toponymic sequence, almost certainly on some work earlier than any that has survived. Was the chartmaker told about the place or feature by a seafaring acquaintance, or did he learn about it himself when travelling? Did he take it from a written source, such as a portolano? Or, more likely, did he copy it from somebody else?

Names could have been introduced, abandoned, then re-introduced, perhaps much later and perhaps on one or more separate occasions. But if we are right in our assumption that a chartmaker would have copied the names from an existing chart exemplar or (in our view more probably) from sectioned extracts taken out of such a work so as to constitute a separate toponymic pattern [see Anonymous works and the question of their attribution to individual chartmakers or to their supposed workshops], then the apparent re-introduction of a name may reveal instead a possibly lengthy gap in what survives of that separate transmission line. An alternative interpretation would be that the person re-introducing the name had taken it from an old chart or a contemporary one produced elsewhere. The Catalans' long delay, until the mid-15th century, in repeating so many of the preceding Italian innovations may have such an explanation, although it is puzzling that the revival happened piecemeal [see Tables D & E of Second appearance of northern Adriatic names on Italian and Catalan charts respectively (up to 1469) (a Microsoft Word document).

The general Table 1 names the individual practitioners, and from that - for the earlier period at least where most chartmaking operations were static - the place where the name first appeared can be inferred [see The addition of 'Significant Names' to the 31 sections of coastline (tables) (a Microsoft Word document)]. Table 5 of another Word document The addition of 'Significant Names' to the seven main regions (graphs & tables) summarises the place of introduction for the period up to 1500 according to seven broad geographical areas. Some detailed comments about the activities of Italian and Catalan chartmakers have already been made above but it may be permissible to repeat here an overview paragraph from the 1987 work:

"By the late fourteenth century, and on at least to 1430, the presence or absence of new names provides a pointer, therefore, to the likely place of production. That chart-makers remained largely ignorant of (or unimpressed by) the names introduced in other centers allows us with some confidence to designate the Dulcert innovations as Catalan, the Pizigani additions as Venetian, the Beccari ones as Genoese, and so on. With so few original charts extant, there must remain the strong possibility that even earlier lost works deserve the credit for introducing some of the names onto the portolan charts. In other words, our dates for a number of new names might be too late. But the consistency of the regional patterns leaves little doubt that most of the innovations have been ascribed to the correct chartmaking center. If 'Venetian' [or Genoese] names, for example, had actually been borrowed from lost Catalan charts, they would show up in later Catalan work. Yet this does not happen" ('Chapter', p.425a).

The previous comments have referred to the time-lag in terms of the handing-on of a name from one chartmaker to another, like a relay athlete's baton. The section in the original 'Chapter', pp. 426-7a under the heading 'The significance of place-name changes' was concerned instead with the initial delay before a name reached a chart at all. This 'historical' time-lag is clearly of more general interest. However, I have been able to add nothing noteworthy to the account given in 1987 about the chartmakers' speed in responding to external reality. I reaffirm my earlier conclusion that we can say just one thing about the 'pace of toponymic absorption on the portolan charts: that it was unpredictable and erratic' ('Chapter' p.427a).

Looking to the end of the period we are considering, the second half of the 16th century, Giuseppe Caraci found that 15% of new names in the Italian peninsula were of 'ports and towns that either were newly founded or had grown during the early modern period (and, in some cases, are the names of small bays that had acquired importance due to the increase in very low-tonnage shipping' (1936, p.170, via Astengo, 2007(a) p.204b).

Another possible line of investigation would be to look in the toponymic record for reflections of the fluctuating fortunes of the Christian and Ottoman empires. The westward move of the Ottomans in the 15th century and Spanish incursion into north Africa in the early 16th are the most obvious examples of that. However, no attempt was made to carry out that detailed work. Perhaps others will take this on.

However, one refinement can be added. I had originally said (p.427a) that it was no coincidence that Livorno is 'first named on surviving charts in 1426, five years after its new overlord, Florence, acknowledged the town's superiority over Porto Pisano'. The reference was to the 1426 chart by Battista Beccari. At that time I had not appreciated the reliability as evidence of the copy of his father Francesco's chart in the Cornaro Atlas. Livorno is one of a number of names that must have been added by Francesco after he produced his sole surviving work in 1403. Nothing further is known of his activity after that date but, while the model for the Cornaro version must have been produced after 1403, it is unlikely to have been as late as 1426 or indeed the pivotal date of 1421 referred to above. That suggested interpretation should therefore be abandoned.

The study of the way that individual names were transmitted from one portolan chartmaker to another should perhaps have its own name. If so, the term would need to be immediately sub-divided. One branch would concern itself with orthography (and local history), with the way that a particular name form was directly imitated, translated, evolved, significantly altered, or abandoned and replaced with an alternative. Only research of that type can determine if chartmaker C was likely to have received the name from predecessor A or B (or those close to them). Ramon Pujades, a multi-lingual, palaeographically-trained archivist, is carrying out ground-breaking work along those lines. With lesser skills, I have focused on the second approach to toponymic analysis, the incidence of a name: simply, was it there or not.

In earlier centuries all naming was approximate and fluid. The variant forms represent a continuum with perhaps distinct forms at either end but, if so, with no clear dividing line between them. Take for example flume turlo, seen first in the Catalan Atlas and identified as referring to the R. Dnestr. These are some of the 15 or so variants of a single toponym that Anton Gordyeyev, the expert on the Black Sea, has identified: flux turrlo, flume turla, flin tarlo, f. torlolo, torbolo f, f. turlola f. turloso, filustuio, r. curlolo. For other Black Sea names there can be up to 30 variants, some of which move still further away from any norm.

Faced with such toponymic cacophony, I elected to treat as one and the same those names which looked recognisably similar, and to consider as separate entities those that seemed quite different. The justification for this lies in the fact that the chart copyist was undoubtedly using a workshop pattern, not inventing the names as he wrote. We might appreciate that [castel de la] pescara and castiglion refer to today's Castiglione della Pescaia but how do we know that contemporaries did? Or that castri/caltresa, cristo and grixona are all considered to point to the same place (Nos 1378-80) north of Foya and Izmir? Since the variant forms have separate histories and can help to identify lineage, it makes sense to add that orthographic element to what is otherwise a strict concentration on the presence or absence of a particular name. Such variant or successive forms are indicated with a shared '}' in the Table of 'Significant Names' (a Microsoft Word document).

The emphasis, in other words, was on the appearance of a name, not what it represented to the chart copyist (or is now thought to have done) - though modern identifications are of course important and have been included. This approach is quantifiable; the orthographic one is much less so.

A careful analysis of all the names for Catalonia & Valencia and the northern Adriatic, found on each accessible chart and atlas produced before 1470, is included in Pujades (2007, pp.350-97). The question of who first introduced a particular name - at least as far as we can tell from the unrepresentative self-selection of surviving dated works - has already been discussed, in a consideration of the full range of the early charts over four centuries [for the details see The addition of 'Significant Names' to the 31 sections of coastline (tables) (a Microsoft Word document)]. The Pujades listings provide for the first time the opportunity to seek confident quantitative answers to the transmission questions: when and by whom was a name next repeated? Since it cannot be assumed that those two, well-separated coastal sections would exhibit similar patterns, they have been considered separately. [Not every name has been considered - for the reasons for omitting rare names see Rare and irregular names.]

In each case, the information, on a pair of Microsoft Word documents, is set out on five separate tables. For all five, see Second appearance of northern Adriatic names on Italian and Catalan charts respectively (up to 1469) and for the two relating just to Catalonia & Valencia, Second appearance of Catalonia & Valencia names on Italian and Catalan charts respectively (up to 1469). The five tables comprise, first (A) a full listing of the Pujades names extracted from the 'Table of Significant Names', next a summary (B) of those findings including the time-lag, then (C) a further summary of the toponymic transmission for the two areas combined, (D) a simplified comparison of the time-lag on Italian and Catalan charts for each region and finally (E) a joint table showing the first reappearance of Italian names on 15th-century Catalan charts.

Looking at the combined Table C it is immediately apparent that not only did the Vescontes provide the great majority of innovations but in precisely the same proportion for each of the two areas, about 70%. Considering just Catalonia & Valencia there was an even more striking progression thereafter, with 90% of those Vescontian (Venetian) introductions appearing next on the 1330 Dalorto chart - whether or not that was produced in Majorca this is clearly the oldest surviving chart in the Catalan tradition - and then, once more in Venice, on the works of the Pizzigani brothers. Only one of the 42 Vesconte innovations fails to appear on a later Catalan chart.

That undated works have not been considered here can lead to obvious distortions. A check was therefore made of the 39 Spanish names repeated by the Pizzigani brothers in 1367 or 1373-[83], all but one of which came from Vesconte. Might those have appeared on charts assigned to the intervening half century or so? In the great majority of cases the progression (in terms of chronology at least) proves to include the unknown Genoese chartmakers whose work Pujades has assigned to the second quarter of the 14th century. Whatever the actual transmission sequence, the Pizzigani were not responsible for reviving a dormant toponymy. The same applies to the northern Adriatic.

The size of the Adriatic sample, at 127 names, is almost twice that for Catalonia & Valencia, which gives more scope for analysis. The similarity in the Vescontian contribution for the two coasts has been mentioned, but the next stage is somewhat different. Dalorto/Dulceti (1330-9) had replicated 93% of the Catalonia & Valencia names first seen on Vesconte but the equivalent figure for the Adriatic is only 58%. Likewise, the Adriatic progression (if such it be) of Vesconte - Dulceti - Pizzigani involves only about 50% of the names here, as against the 90% for Catalonia/Valencia. This would seem to reflect the expected situation where the Majorcan chartmakers would have more knowledge of, and interest in, the nearby Spanish mainland than in the Venetian-dominated Adriatic, and vice versa for those working in La Serenissima itself.

When looking at the Catalonia & Valencia coast for post-Vescontian introductions, the contribution of Majorcan chartmakers is surprisingly modest: Dalorto/Dulceti (3), Soler, Vallseca and Roselli (1 each). The two new names found on the 1421 Venetian work of Cesanis might be less expected but the 12 introductions by the Beccaris, of which at least ten are directly attributable to Francesco in 1403 (or probably not long afterwards), fit into an interpretation based on propinquity (mentioned previously). Beccari might have been 'Italian' but, more accurately, he was Genoese (even if his sole surviving chart is signed from nearby Savona) and the spread of his toponymic innovations [see The addition of 'Significant Names' to the 31 sections of coastline (tables) (a Microsoft Word document)] shows a marked bias in favour of the western Mediterranean, with little of his input relating to the Adriatic.

Further toponymic transmission in the northern Adriatic before 1470 - insofar as the fragmentary record of surviving charts allows us clear conclusions - is considerably more complex. Following from the fact that only 58% of the Vesconte innovations were picked up in this case by Dalorto/Dulceti, the Pizzigani's become the first dated charts to repeat 69 of those names (representing 77% of the total). The brothers also introduced (or, in some cases, perhaps copied from the unknown early Genoese) a further 15 names. All of those can be found on one or more of the subsequent Venetian charts by the year 1421, or on Beccari's of 1403. By contrast the Catalans were much slower to absorb the Pizziganian additions. Two can be seen on Vallseca's first chart of 1439, the remainder (minus one) first reappear on his later work and that of Roselli on various occasions between 1447 and 1462.

While all the Dalorto/Dulceti innovations (three for Catalonia & Valencia and nine for the northern Adriatic) reappear on the Catalan Atlas of about 1375, the first Catalan appearance of names first noted on Italian charts was both long delayed and erratic. This is demonstrated on Table E of Second appearance of northern Adriatic names on Italian and Catalan charts respectively (up to 1469) (a Microsoft Word document).

The only 15th-century innovations ascribable to Catalan chartmakers are one Catalonia/Valencia name each by Vallseca (1439) and Roselli (1449). Similarly, the single Adriatic name added by Vallseca (1439) fits into the pattern of Catalan re-discovery described above. Why did it take so long - decades or even a century or more - for these names to be known to, or thought relevant by, chartmakers in Palma, Majorca? We can be sure that they did not achieve general currency until the middle years of the 15th century and, more interestingly, that they did not come at once, and to a single chartmaker, but progressively over a period of years, and on at least seven separate occasions, variously to Roselli and Vallseca - 13 for Catalonia & Valencia and 45 for the northern Adriatic. A detailed examination of the recurrence and orthography of each of the names involved might throw further light on the transmission route taken by each. But there must certainly have been multiple lineages. While it may indicate a disorganised approach to data gathering, or the borrowing of information from others, these findings are a further testament to the volatility and dynamism of the portolan charts.

[for conclusions that still seem valid, see 'Chapter' pp.425-27a]

The section above, Toponymic transmission after 1313, and particularly the accompanying pages of Microsoft Word tables for Catalonia & Valencia (particularly Table B) and the northern Adriatic (especially Tables B & D) give specific examples of the delayed toponymic re-introduction. What general conclusions can be drawn about the dissemination time-lag?

There is no reason to suppose that a single surviving chart embodies the actual first appearance of even one of the 771 recorded toponymic innovations. Or that any chartmaker saw one of the charts that we can now study. We are dealing with a highly fragmented record and must pick our way carefully through the random survivors. In discussing toponymic time-lag we are necessarily dealing with approximations of date as well as the absence from the analysis, for that same reason, of undated charts. What the separate 'Summary' tables to the Catalonia & Valencia and northern Adriatic analysis attempt to show, with an even more generalised summary in the Adriatic's joint Table D, is the approximate delay in years between a name's first reliably dated appearance and its next inclusion, first on the work of a similarly Catalan or Italian practitioner and then on a chart made elsewhere.

The delayed introduction onto the charts of Vesconte and his successors of names that had appeared on the early portolani or on the two undated charts that apparently precede his work were discussed in the section Toponymic transmission before 1311. We are here concerned with post-Vescontian time-lag.

There are no surviving dated or confidently datable works for the middle years of the 14th century, between, for the Italians, the last dated Vesconte production of 1327 and the Pizzigani chart of 40 years later. For the Catalans, the equivalent period is that between the 1339 Dulceti chart and the Catalan Atlas of (probably) 1375. Taking into account also the part played by at least four unnamed Genoese practitioners working in the period before or during those two hiatuses, which also coincide with the Black Death, it makes sense to label as having 'no delay' any names, mostly from the Vescontes, that were repeated during the 14th century.

As conveniently summarised in Table D on the Adriatic pages, it appears that the repetition of around 70% of names, for both the study areas, occurred as soon as could have been expected. Except, that is, for the Catalan practitioners' speed of adoption of Adriatic names, which achieved a rate of no more than 50%. It is hard to extract any obvious patterns, between, say, a gap of 20, 50 or 80 years, because clusterings will usually do no more than point to a particular work which had simultaneously picked up a range of names. It is, however, worth noting the surprisingly large Catalan occurrences in the Adriatic column for those with a time-lag of a century or more. A comparable number of names did not reappear at all - at least in the period up to 1469, although comparison between the 'Catalan' columns of the Adriatic Table A and the one to their right reveals that several of the unrepeated names [marked with dashes] did indeed recur later, even if not on Catalan charts.

The foregoing does not take account of the occasional inclusions of names on undated works, assigned variously to the end of the 14th or early years of the 15th century. Notable instances are the Pinelli-Walckenaer and Corbitis atlases, other unsigned Venetian work and the Medici Atlas.

The final pair of columns in the 'Summary' table for each coastal stretch contrasts the delays within the same chartmaking centre with those when a subsequent chart was drawn elsewhere. Since it focuses on that distinction, the 'same' nationality will vary depending on where the name had been first introduced. The respective Catalan and Italian delays are better seen numerically in the Adriatic Table D. As would be expected, there was a tendency for delays to be shorter within one centre than between different ones, with non-reappearance treated here as the ultimate delay. There were just four contrary indications in each case [see the respective Table B's, where those instances are italicised].

If the preceding comments strengthen the need for caution in extrapolating from the different patterns emerging out of two carefully studied sections of coast to others that have not been examined in the same detail, so too does the frequency with which lengthy delays could occur between a name's first appearance and its repetition. Dating arguments about the presence of a name are always going to be more convincing than those that concentrate on absence.

As was described above under Toponymic transmission after 1313, there was a clear picture of the take-up of new names in the 14th century, with a majority of Vescontian innovations reappearing on the work of Dalorto/Dulceti and then that of the Pizzigani brothers. However, the immediate, and thereafter regular copying of an introduced name by all those who followed later was far from being the norm. What is actually encountered, and quite regularly, are names that are slow to gain general acceptance and appear intermittently, names that are not repeated for several decades (sometimes more than a century), and names that remain the preserve of one production centre or an individual chartmaker. Other names were sufficiently rare or seen only on undated works and were therefore omitted from the 'Table of Significant Names'.

The five tables that comprise the Microsoft Word document, Rare names, toponymic gaps and reintroductions, provide examples, both general and specific, of delayed toponymic adoption and inconsistency. The first three tables have a column noting the time-gap in each case:

A. Examples of long time-gaps before the apparent second appearance of Vescontian names on dated works
B. Examples of the reintroduction of discarded names
C. Instances of the delay in picking up Portuguese names in the Mediterranean
D. A selection of the intermittent names between Toulon and Genoa on the work of Benincasa
E. Numbered names listed in Pujades (2009) from the 1439 Vallseca chart, which are not included in the 'Significant Names' listing, or where our interpretations are different

The comprehensive toponymic analysis carried out by Ramon Pujades for his ground-breaking 2007 work presented the full toponymy for two regions, Catalonia & Valencia and the northern Adriatic, from the beginning up to 1469. Rare and unique names for Catalonia & Valencia and the northern Adriatic extracted from the toponymic listings in Pujades, 2007 (a Microsoft Word document) lists those names that are not included in the 'Table of Significant Names'. No area on a portolan chart can be considered to be typical and the two sample areas chosen by Pujades comprise no more than 10% of the total continental coastlines. Nevertheless, the proportion of such unusual names - 6 out of 68 (9%) for Catalonia/Valencia and 32 out of 155 (21%) for the northern Adriatic - may give some kind of indication of the number that would be need to be added to the listing of Significant Names for it to be comprehensive (at least for the period up to 1469). Since the systematic nature of the Pujades listings allowed me to incorporate a few extra names as 'Significant', which would have been missed elsewhere, 'rare' names might, for that early period, constitute perhaps as much as 20% of the whole. The suggested addition to the table's 1,800 names might therefore be somewhere in the region of a further 350. There is no basis for estimating the percentage that might need to be added for the period 1470-1600.

The two 'Rare names ...' tables provide a useful sampling and give an idea of what could be anticipated elsewhere from further comprehensive studies. For researchers particularly concerned with rare names, the fact that the toponymy of the northern Adriatic - Venice's back-yard - displays innovation only on Venetian charts, might be expected. However, the mixed picture for the coast of Catalonia & Valencia makes it difficult to anticipate which chartmakers might be responsible for such rare or 'erratic' introductions elsewhere.

Pujades's larger Adriatic sampling allows the following generalisations about rare names:

• A few of the Vesconte names seem to have been ignored; others might be revived up to a century later (providing good examples of the intermittency that can sometimes be seen elsewhere)
• All the instances of these 'rare' names are found in Italian productions and a sizeable proportion on anonymous Venetian works, particularly those assigned to the second quarter of the 15th century
• Their presence in this listing is testimony to the dynamic nature of Venetian toponymy but also to the limited extent that these unknown practitioners imitated one another or their contemporaries known by name
• The innovative nature of the Corbitis and Pinelli-Walckenaer atlases (in the same hand) is clearly demonstrated

Toponymic confusion could take various forms. Sometimes it was in the spelling of the name, with variations occasionally drifting so far from the original that it made sense to include both forms in the 'Table of Significant Names'. Such instances are clearly paired in that table (with a }). A few are evidently substitutions of one form for a quite different one. For example, it would seem that, around 1500, Cape Minerba changed its name to Campanella (Nos 554-5).

Pairs of noticeably different names - definitely or apparently referring to the same place - are not unusual, but in two instances there seem to be three variants. The first refers to Horozgedigi limani (Candarli?), a little to the north of Ismir (Nos 1378-9), but there is some doubt about the identifications.

Of greater significance is the successive relabelling of Algeciras (Nos 283b-284b). Seen first as [g]isalcaldera in the 13th-century portolano, 'Liber de existencia...' and also on the earliest Vesconte charts, it was replaced on the two latest Vescontian works by zizera. This form was then ignored until (probably) the undated G. Soler chart and (certainly) the one produced in 1403 by F. Beccari. zizera seems to have been standard through the first half of the 15th century (though this was not thoroughly checked). It was certainly used by Benincasa until he abruptly changed in 1468 to the modern form, algeçira. The precise spelling is difficult to read on the Roselli charts, because it is partly obscured under the mountain wash of the Sierra Nevada, but he had certainly added the 'al' prefix by 1449. That both Vesconte and Benincasa made definite toponymic substitutions must indicate a supply of fresh information in each case. {The two paragraphs above added 1 October 2013}

To distinguish the corruption caused by a copyist's ignorance or carelessness from differences due to language or dialect, or to any actual mutation of the name, would require specialist local knowledge. But most of the obvious corruption is not evident until around the middle of the 16th century. It is usually easier to recognize the 13th-century Liber's latinized name forms than many of those from the later centuries. As with the coastal outlines that were starting to lose their precision at roughly the same time, this is testament to the previous two and half centuries of faithful copying.

Rosselló i Verger gives examples of corruption for the Spanish coast north of Cartagena. He also found up to a dozen variations for a single name, involving translations (if the name had a meaning) or dialect differences introduced in the various chartmaking centres (1995, p.348a and, for the 'omnipresent toponyms', pp.349b-350b).

It might have been assumed that one of the charts' main purposes was to set down the sequence of names along a coastline. If so, this quite often failed. It is fairly common to find the usual order of names confused - though, if one of those referred to a gulf, such as the Croatian Gulf of Quarner (modern Kvarner), that is understandable.

The usual convention when listing portolan chart toponymy is to write the names in their 'proper' order, on the basis of the known place referred to, or, when this was not clear, simply to reproduce the usual sequence. All names would then be recorded in that ideal progression but with annotations - 2, 4, 3, 1, or so on - to note the order on that particular chart. This convention is followed by Pujades in his invaluable 2007 listings for the northern Adriatic and Catalonia/Valencia coastlines (pp.350-97). As was already known, the eastern Adriatic was the most confused area on the charts (which was the reason he chose to document it). Real problems were encountered in the section Parenso - Segna - Zara, and then around Sibenicho (where confusion continued into the 16th century).

Not surprisingly, the Catalan chartmakers were confident about the Spanish names, but the early Italian practitioners were equally accurate. However, for Bianco and Nicolai at least (1436 and 1448), the section between La Cantara and Denia caused unexpected difficulties.

To find a 1, 2, 3 reality expressed as 3, 2, 1 indicates either ignorance or carelessness. Lack of information seems the likely explanation for those 14th-century errors that were corrected in the 15th. However the most egregious errors I observed were on the latest work I examined, the 1677 chart by Pietro Cavallini. The jumbling up of names reached such levels as to make it hard sometimes to determine what place was intended.

Where stretches of coastline turn in on themselves, creating peninsular forms - such as southern Italy, Morea/Peloponnese or Crimea - there was often limited space to write the required names inside the coastal outline. This would seem to reduce the possibilities for innovation, with any new name requiring the removal of an existing one. That those sections tend to be among the more toponymically varied, may point to different choices rather than progressive dynamism.

It needs to be stressed that consistency in name selection was never total. All chartmakers were inconsistent to some extent. Names might be occasionally omitted, which warns against placing too much exclusive weight on a single absence. As can be seen in the work of the largely predictable Benincasa, it is possible to find a name that appears on perhaps half his works, or is intermittent, rare or maybe even unique (see above Benincasa). Lack of space at the pinch-points or just carelessness can explain such omissions, as also the occasional repetition. Or we are dealing with conscious choice. Caraci compared charts drawn in Naples in successive years (1587 & 1588) by Joan Riczo (alias Oliva) and found that, though the totals for Italy were roughly the same, about 20% of the names were different (1936, p.169 - via Astengo 207(a) p.204b, who speculates that, since this was Riczo's home region, he had more names at his disposal and could therefore choose).

The importance we assign to toponymy - and our assumption that the contemporary makers and users did as well - should not blind us to the fact that sometimes place-names were obscured or omitted. Occasionally, the accidental relationship between the rhumb-line network and the coastal outlines means that an intersection point appears where names need to be written. Since the lines were (presumably) always present before the names, the scribe would often try to fit all or part of the toponym into the available space.

When a rhumb runs parallel to the direction of the writing they seem to have done what we would expect and placed names either side of the line rather than over it. Likewise, when appropriate, they appear to have placed the beginning or end of the word next to a line running at right-angles to the direction of writing, using the rhumb as a marginal line.

Such punctilious concern for toponymy was not universal. Indeed, it seems that the more ornate the chart, and the further it had moved from any practical purpose, the more its toponymy could be sacrificed in favour of ornament. For a note on the way that the armorial devices for Corsica, Sardinia and Sicily could displace toponymy see The presence of an armorial device within the separate countries of the British Isles, as well as within Corsica, Sardinia and Sicily (a Microsoft Word document). This process reaches its culmination in the solid gold on the Catalan Atlas and on the 1413 work by a former pupil of that same workshop, Macià Viladesters, which entirely obscures the coastal names of all the larger islands. However, as I failed to note earlier, in those cases the toponymy has been carefully written in the sea, observing the usual red and black conventions {This sentence added 20 October 2013}. This contrasts with the careful way that Dulceti in 1339, when applying thick blue over the Atlas Mountains, worked the colour around the place-names at the point where they came down to the west coast so that all of them remained legible.

One of the typical features of Catalan work is the broad, largely triangular green shape of the Sierra Nevada and associated uplands in Granada. On the charts of Roselli the colour tends to have browned but even when created it must have obscured much of the toponymy between Algeciras and Cartagena, involving up to 30 names. That Roselli held the colour back from the intermittent red names shows he was trying to mitigate this problem. {This paragraph added 1 October 2013}

Particularly on charts of the 16th century or later, it was not unusual for city vignettes or flags to displace sections of the toponymy altogether. Andrea Benincasa's chart of 1508 places a plan-view of his native Ancona in such a way as to smother perhaps seven surrounding names. To cite another example, in the British Library's 1559 Olives chart [wrongly attributed to Agnese on the online scan] the large vignette of the enthroned king of Spain is positioned so as to suppress all the names for the northern coast of his kingdom, except for five that were moved out into the sea.

In connection with the relation of scale to toponymic density, I concluded in 1987 that it was likely that the 'overriding need to accommodate the full complement of place-names imposed its own minimum limits on the scale' (p.421a). In other words, just as the number of names would not be systematically reduced overall - as opposed to localised omissions because of lack of space around peninsulas - it was equally clear that the volume of names could not be expanded unless room was made for that purpose. The obvious way to do that would be to increase the size of the chart or the scale of an atlas sheet, or to restrict coverage to a smaller area, usually a single sea, often the Adriatic or Aegean. But was that their reason for adopting a larger scale?

In 1987, I stated that there was little evidence that 'the larger-scale sheets in portolan atlases contained more names' but that 'the extra space permitted by the larger scale of detailed separate charts was occasionally used to increase the number of place-names' (p.421a). My examples were taken from the period before 1500. When Corradino Astengo considered charts from the later period he found that, 'contrary to the tendency in the medieval period, at the same time as the scale of charts became larger in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, one sees an increase in the number of town names along the coastlines' (2007a, p.205b). He cites several examples, although for Jacopo Maggiolo's nautical chart of the Tyrrhenian Sea, made in Genoa in 1567, he concluded that the cartographer 'seems to have concentrated on the coastal areas best known to him and served by a lot of Genoese shipping'. Propinquity again?

Constraints of space did not, of course, apply to the written portolani. Compiled by and for sailors, it is natural to assume that they were not just designed for practical navigational use but were indispensable for 'all navigators who want to journey in safety' (as the colophon of the Rizo incunable portolano put it). It is therefore surprising to learn from Ramon Pujades that such volumes were found only very rarely in the inventories of sailors who had died abroad (2007, p.465a), while Piero Falchetta discovered several serious, and potentially dangerous, navigational errors in the 15th-century portolano of Michael of Rhodes (2008, pp.272-4).

However, despite those limitations, the portolani must surely provide a complementary picture of geographical and navigational knowledge to that arrayed on the charts, in particular with respect to their toponymy. And, of course, they had the great advantage that they lacked the same space restrictions. Kretschmer, in his major study of 1909, and Falchetta in his online examination of the Adriatic toponymy on Venetian charts, included a number of early portolani in their name listings. Benincasa's of the Adriatic, Aegean and surroundings is datable to 1435-45, and there are two later printed versions: one written by an anonymous 'Venetian gentleman' and published in Venice in 1490 by Bernardino Rizo, the other, also in Venice, by Matteo Pagano in 1568. Kretschmer both transcribes and includes in his toponymic listing a selection of early manuscripts, including those by Benincasa (pp.358-420 and Rizo (pp.420-552) [on which see also the facsimile of Portolano per i naviganti on the Bibliothèque nationale de France's "Gallica" site (choose TIFF or PDF format via 'Téléchargement de l'ouvrage')].

The Table of 'Significant Names' (a Microsoft Word document) picks up some of the references to those two printed portolans, though they were not systematically checked. Both Kretschmer and Falchetta note several names on the 1490 printed portolan that are not observed on charts until much later. About a dozen of those instances can be retrieved by searching the Table's final column for 'Rizo'.

Pagano also issued a printed portolan chart in 1558 [see Nordenskiöld's Periplus Pl. XXVII] but this was, it seems, a faithful copy of a woodcut first published, also in Venice, by Giovanni Andrea Vavassore in 1539. [See a high resolution illustration from the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich (search for 'vavassore').] Pagano's chart covers the Adriatic and Aegean seas as well as the eastern Mediterranean. Seven instances of names appearing on the Vavassore woodcut long after their apparent abandonment on the charts have been noted on the Table of 'Significant Names' (a Microsoft Word document). Four of them have the date '1470' in the Table's "Disappears after" column, one 1494, one 1505 and the last 1512. Unless Vavassore's woodcut was modelled on an old chart, this may indicate the conservative content of some Venetian charts in the period leading up to 1539.

A significant proportion of the Vavassore (hence Pagano) names are those favoured by the Benincasan succession, which, abandoned by other chartmakers, finally disappeared in the 1560s. Perhaps Vavassore was copying from a chart by the Anconitan Freducci. Even though such instances would be later than any yet seen on a hand-drawn chart, they have not been noted in that Table. Toponymic revision would have been a simple matter at the time each new manuscript chart was produced but the mechanical reproduction involved in printing favoured a laissez-fair approach and making changes to a woodcut, even at the stage of copying new blocks, would have been a more complex operation. In other words, the woodblocks in their Pagano iteration cannot be taken as mirroring contemporary seamen's knowledge.

The 16th century also saw the printing of a popular Portolano nuovo (Venice, 1544 and many later editions) and, at the century's end, various printed sea atlases, combining a portolan text with charts, emerged from the Netherlands. However, the Waghenaer atlases first omitted the Mediterranean altogether (1584) and then included just text (1592). It was thus Willem Barentsz's Caertboeck vande Midlandtsche Zee (1595) that led the way with printed charts, but not with originality. As explained by Cornelis Koeman in his introduction to the Theatrum Orbis Terrarum facsimile edition (Amsterdam: Nico Israel, 1970) the text came from a 1584 edition of the Portolano nuovo and the charts were reminiscent of Agnese's. Koeman did not discuss the toponymy but a quick glance suggests that, despite the much enlarged scale and considerable inland detail, some of the coastal variation might be caused by corruption. If the work to identify Barentsz's portolan chart source has not yet been carried out perhaps this should be done.

What does each portolan chart toponym refer to? Many are unambiguous but in several cases the identification is obscure. What, for example, is the meaning of agulones, introduced just north of La Rochelle by the Pizzigani brothers in 1373 [No.92 in my listing]? Is it the port of L'Aiguillon, the Pointe de l'Aiguillon (a headland) or Anse de l'Aiguillon (an inlet)? Or perhaps all three. It is equally possible that the meaning of a toponym itself changed over time, reflecting, for example, the different purposes of those who used the smaller vessels that became the norm during the 16th century (Astengo 2007a, pp.174a, 204b).

Most river estuaries will have a port near the mouth or a little way upstream. Does naming the river include the settlement information by inference? Yet sometimes the toponyms take care to distinguish the town, perhaps in red, from the nearby c[abo] de x or g[ulfo] de x, though it is noticeable that they would occasionally confuse the initial letters for headland and gulf. [Though, see below, the 'g.' might actually have stood, on Catalan charts at least, for grau or landing-stage instead.]

As the trading empires of Genoa, Venice and Catalonia waxed and waned they left some imprint on the portolan chart toponymy. One indication of this was the naming of a foreign post after the city's patron saint. St George, Genoa's saint, appears regularly, as san giorgio, san zorçi, etc. Several of these instances are rare and one, at least, between Tortosa and Tarragona has a different reference, denoting a military order for whom St George's quarry were pirates rather than the dragon (Rosselló i Verger, 1995, p.347c). Examples of places named by Venetians in honour of San Marco are less frequent, and saints Catalina (Majorca) Sebastian (Palma, Majorca) and Eulalia (Barcelona) seem not to have been used away from their own heartlands - at least among those that recurred on other charts.

Roughly 1,800 names have been considered in the 'Significant Names Analysis', covering the continuous coastline between northern France and Morocco. That total is about 50% larger than what would be found on a single chart, since it includes names that appeared or disappeared, that were particular to one production centre, were intermittent and so on [see the Table above in the General section]. To unscramble the reliable meaning between each toponym would require a massive work of synthesis, gathering up all the best local history sources and specialist cartographic studies - or more realistically commissioning new ones. A good example of how such work might be carried out can be seen in the investigation by Rosselló i Verger for the Spanish coastline north from Cartagena (1995, pp.345-50 - in the English version of his trilingual text).

Instead, in an attempt to gain a tentative understanding of what toponymic information the charts offered to their users, two sample areas were selected, each of 100 names: Northern France (Dunkirk to La Rochelle) and the northern Adriatic (Ancona to Zara). The information was first divided between Human and Physical Geography and then assigned to sub-categories on the basis of what was clearly, or likely, to be referred to.

First of all, in each case 18 (i.e. also 18%) of the names for each of the two areas had to be treated as unidentifiable or, where modern equivalents have been suggested by Kretschmer (1909) and Pujades (2009), the nature of the place or feature referred to was not evident to me. The results are too impressionistic to be published in full, though they can easily be supplied to any who are interested. The figures that follow (all percentages) are provided merely to give an impression of the approximate scale.

Along the Atlantic French coast about 47% of the names seem to refer to human features, against 35% for references to physical geography. For the northern Adriatic the respective figures were 54 and 28. However, the unidentified names are more likely to refer to natural features, which would increase their proportion, perhaps to a half. Rosselló i Verger (1995, pp.345-6), who examined about 80 names between Cartagena and Narbonne, reached a slightly different conclusion, finding that about one-third were towns and just over half were headlands. He also makes the interesting observation that headlands would often have a fortification sited on them, which would provide a valuable sight-line for ships (and perhaps provide a joint Human and Physical reference). Rosselló also interpreted the prefix grau (literally 'step') to denote a landing stage. Valencia and Tortosa both have that supplementary name alongside.

Not surprisingly, in the Human category the great majority represented settlements, a group that was left undifferentiated here and could refer to a city, town, village, port or harbour [though the latter might perhaps have been uninhabited]. One separate category was created for the few inland towns up navigable rivers. Another - in each case involving a single name - seemed to refer to a 'fortification' of some kind, though such indications are of course far more frequent in the areas disputed between Christians and Muslims. For example, along the Maghreb coast there are several instances of casar, referring to the Arabic word for a fortified town or castle. Inland town and fortifications numbered no more than seven out of the 200 names considered for these two sample areas, which are not likely to be wholly typical, if there is such a thing as a norm anyway.

There was greater variety for names that referred to natural features. In the case of France the largest category was for a cape, point or headland (12 instances) followed closely by island (11). For the northern Adriatic - not surprisingly, given the need to place some names inshore, away from the crowded sea - it was the island category that came first (13), with estuary next (7). Other features noted in small numbers (1 to 3 only) were identified as channel, gulf or bay, lagoon, rock or sandbank.

Some names, popular from the later 16th century onwards and noticed particularly on the 1677 Cavallini atlas, seem to be descriptive. salina presumably refers to salt in some way (saltmarsh/saltworks?) and plage seems likely to represent either the Italian word piaggia (sea-shore or slope) or spiaggia (sands). Such instances have been noted as 'Significant Names' only where they were found repeated at least twice afterwards.

It may seem surprising that a number of islands appear in what might have been assumed was a sequence of strictly inland places or features. However, toponymic pressure could affect islands as well as settlement names. With a need to preserve the coherence of a crowded archipelago, such as that along the eastern Adriatic coast or in the Aegean Sea, some island names might be interpolated among the genuine land features. Conversely, where the coast bent back on itself round a peninsula some headlands or even settlement names might be pushed out into the sea. When that was done, the names would usually be written in the opposite direction and sometimes in red, not because of their importance but following the standard treatment for offshore names. [See, for a note on lettering in the sea, Toponymy Methodology.]

Classical references
Scattered around the Mediterranean and Black Sea coasts are the ancient names of coastal towns, for example a group in north-eastern Greece ending '-opoli'. Pujades (2009, pp.152-81), in supplying the modern identifications for the names on the 1439 Vallseca chart, refers to a number of the classical names. It is not clear if that was an indication that the ancient town still flourished, and under its original name, or if that was intended as a conscious historical reference. Astengo pointed out that Altologo [Ephesus, No.1392] and Palatia [Miletus, No.1397] went into decline after the Ottoman capture in the early 15th century and became small towns. Despite that, their names remained on the chart, still picked out in red (2007a, p.205a).

Given the various separate references to ancient cities, e.g. alexandria vechia alongside the current one, we should perhaps be careful about looking for evidence of a classical education among portolan chartmakers and an equivalent historical interest among the charts' users. One unusual linguistic example can be mentioned. stellar, just south of Lesmire/Izmir (No.1385 = Kara burnu), appears to be conveyed as astria on the 1373-83 Pizzigano atlas. Both are Italian (or Latin) variants for 'star'. Residual traces of Latin originals can also be seen in the use of flu[men] for river, for example along the north-west coast of the Black Sea.

In September 2013, the notes in this section were removed and incorporated into a separate analysis:

        Red Names on the Portolan Charts (1311-1677): a detailed investigation

A full listing of the survivors of what might be considered to fall within the (traditionally very broad) definition of 'portolan chart' is given in Pflederer (2009). His table on p.xxii shows production totals for each quarter century. Although there is a peak for the combined period 1650-1700 (462 productions), only a few of those will be charts of the Mediterranean and Black Seas, or in the traditional style. Another 176 are listed for the 18th century but it is almost certain that none would be relevant here.

From various sources - notably Astengo (2007) pp.238-59; the DVD accompanying Pflederer (2009), sorted by date; and Smith (1978) for the English chartmakers - it seems that production of traditional portolan charts of the original core area declined to a trickle in the 1670s, with the latest survivor by a recognised chartmaker dating from 1688. The final production noted for the Oliva family is 1673 [Astengo, ItNa6 & p.262], by Jean Roussin in Marseilles, 1680 [Astengo SvS5] and by Pietro Cavallini in Livorno, 1688 [ItPi3]. Although there may be one or two isolated late examples (for example, Tropheme Vernier, 1679, working in Bologna [Astengo ItBo7] and Gugliemo Saetone, 1682-3 [ItA1 & ItMi5 - two sets, so perhaps printed?]) it seems that the longest-lasting production centres in the Mediterranean were in Livorno and Marseilles (on which see Astengo pp. 229-35).

However, some of the London chartmakers, working along the Thames, were also producing traditional charts in the 1670s and 1680s: for example, Joel Gascoyne, John Thornton and Andrew Welch. The last traditional example surviving from that long-lived school seems to be the chart of the north Atlantic by Gascoyne dated 1686 (Smith p.98). {Previous sentence altered 19 February 2012}

The latest separate charts of the Mediterranean and Black Seas for which I can find a reference are one by Thornton of 1679 [British Library Add 5414.7] and the Roussin of 1680 in Stockholm, already mentioned [on the assumption that it covers the core area].

Also worth noting is the printed chart produced by Marco Fassoi in 1679 (now in the Huntington Library), as a close imitation of a manuscript. [For a note on earlier printed portolan charts, see above Portolani and printed charts.] Evidently ending the story, is the seven-sheet atlas [which presumably includes a Mediterranean sheet] signed by Filippo Francini (probably in Venice) in 1699 (Astengo AW9 & pp.175-7).

Astengo's observation about the ownership inscription of a Knight of San Stefano (based in Pisa) on the 1688 Cavallini atlas (p.180) is probably a fair reflection of how little then remained of the charts' original navigational function, this being 'a visually appealing work that is really a demonstration of nothing other than cartography as an exercise in style' (p.175). In 1680, as Astengo recounts, Colbert had ordered a systematic survey of the coasts of Spain, Catalonia and Provence, at about the time Michel Bremond was starting to issue published charts (p.235). For those who wanted charts for use at sea, this cheaper printed alternative, and no doubt one that was perceived to be more reliable, must have dealt the finishing blow to the traditional portolan chart.

For a listing of accessible scans, see the 'Securely dated post-1469 charts' (a Microsoft Office Word 2003 table). This includes the Huntington Library's 1677 atlas by Pietro Cavallini, the latest production for which scans have been identified.