The Stand-Alone Charts of Battista Agnese

Among the more than ninety atlases of the Genoese cartographer Battista Agnese that survive to the present-day, the seventeen stand-alone charts signed or attributed to him are a small portion. Although a few were the object of specific studies, these charts have received little attention from historians, and no systematic analysis was ever published. This is mostly justified by the fact that, by the time the first reference work about Agnese’s atlas production was published (Henry Wagner, 1931), only two stand-alone charts were known. The situation has changed in recent years with the development of the Medea-Chart database, which facilitated a significant number of hitherto anonymous charts and atlases to be attributed to Agnese. The main goal of this article is to contextualize Agnese’s stand-alone charts within the known production of the cartographer, using the following complementary approaches: the estimation of the different scales in the set, aiming to establish associations among them and with Agnese’s atlases; the application of the Wagner’s classification and dating scheme for the study of the atlases; the comparison between certain coastal stretches among charts and with Agnese’s atlases, aiming to identify common patterns. This methodology has made it possible to better determine the dates of some charts, establish meaningful connections with Agnese’s atlases, and argue about their purposes. One of the most significant findings of the study was the indirect evidence of cartographic patterns shared by the stand-alone charts and the earliest known Agnese’s atlases.