Battista Beccario
Battista Beccario, also known as Baptista Beccharius (name also sometimes given as "Beccaria", "Beccari" or "Bedrazio"), was a 15th-century Genoese cartographer. Virtually nothing is known of his life. Battista is probably a relative (perhaps a son?) of an earlier Genoese cartographer, Francesco Beccario, responsible for a 1403 portolan map. Battista Beccario is the author of two notable portolan charts: 1426 portolan chart, signed and dated, "Baptista Becharius civis Janue composuit hanc cartam anno domini millex.o CCCC.XXX de mense novembris ad requisicionem et nomine...." (rest illegible), 103.5 x 68 cm, held by the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek in Munich, Germany.(Mapp.XXV,1y) 1435 portolan chart signed and dated as "....a becharius. Ciuis Janue composiut hanc ....anno domini. Millexio cccc.xxxv de....jullij" (some portions unreadable), 89 x 65 cm, held by the Biblioteca Palatina in Parma, Italy. (II,21,1613) (A third possible Battista Beccario map surfaced c.1950, albeit unsigned and tentatively dated c.1426. It is privately held.) Both of the Beccario maps are smaller than the "normal portolan", i.e. they omit the Black Sea and most of the east Mediterranean. The maps also barely touches Europe north of Flanders. They do, however, have an expansive Atlantic Ocean, riddled with islands. In the 1426 Munich map, Beccario seems to