Marshall islands navigational charts

Abstract

The discovery of an unpublished document is here used to propose a new interpretation of the production in Venice of world maps for Ottoman clients. It is suggested that three Ottoman princes had been interested in acquiring maps in Venice in the early 1550s as part of their struggle for succession to Sultan Süleyman the Magnificent, and that these maps were different from the famous Hajji Ahmed map, prepared by Giacomo Gastaldi. It is also suggested that the persons involved in creating these maps did not (as previously asserted) include the Venetian publisher Giustinian, whose later attempt to publish Gastaldi's map was blocked for political, and not only religious, considerations.