Bordon, Benedetto

Benedetto Bordone (died 1531) was a Venetian manuscript editor, miniaturist and cartographer. He was born in Padua, then part of the Republic of Venice. His date of birth is unknown but his parents were married in Padua in 1442 and he was married there in 1480. His most famous work is the Isolario (The Book of Islands, "where we discuss all islands of the world, with their ancient and modern names, histories, tales and way of living..."), in which he describes all the islands of the known world, detailing their folklore, myths, cultures, climates, situations, and history. Printed in Venice in 1528, the work is an example of a cartographic genre popular in Italy during the 15th and 16th centuries. It is intended as an illustrated guide for sailors and attempts to include all the new transatlantic discoveries. Isolario contains an oval depiction of the world, a type of map invented by Bordone and formalized into the equal-area elliptical Mollweide projection three centuries later. Bordone's map shows a very distorted Mondo Novo (New World), displaying only the northern regions of South America. North America, depicted as a large island, is labelled Terra del Laboratore ("Land of the...