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Primary sourceDocument1502

Cantino Planisphere

Anonymous Portuguese cartographer · 1502

A 1502 world map smuggled out of Lisbon, among the first to chart the African and Indian coasts reached by da Gama's voyage.

This map incorporates the new geographic knowledge gained from da Gama's voyage to Africa and India.

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Hand-painted portolan-style world map on parchment showing the Atlantic, Africa, and parts of Asia and the Americas, with compass roses, rhumb lines, colored flags, and Latin and Portuguese place labels.
Anonymous, Cantino Planisphere, 1502. Biblioteca Estense, Modena.

About this source

What it is

The Cantino planisphere is a hand-painted manuscript world map made around 1502, now kept at the Biblioteca Estense in Modena, Italy. It was obtained secretly from Lisbon by Alberto Cantino, an Italian agent, for the Duke of Ferrara. The map draws on information from several recent voyages, including those of Columbus, Cabral, the Corte-Real brothers, and Vasco da Gama's route to eastern Africa and India.

Why it matters

This map shows how quickly geographic knowledge from da Gama's voyage spread and was used, even though the Portuguese tried to keep such information secret for strategic advantage. It is considered the most important surviving map from the early Age of Discovery, revealing how European powers were racing to chart and claim the wider world.

Look closer

  • Why would Portugal want to keep this geographic information secret, and why might Cantino have wanted it anyway?
  • What parts of the world does the map get right or leave vague, and why?
  • How does this map reflect whose voyages were considered important enough to record?

This document is part of the curated material that grounds the AI version of Vasco da Gama on Humy.ai — when students ask about related events, the AI can quote it and cite it.

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