The exhibition “The Nautical Chart of Pere Rossell, 1447: The World Drawn for Navigation” will open this Friday, June 26, at 7:30 PM at the Museum of Mallorca.
According to the Council, the exhibition will be open to the public until September 13, after which it will remain temporarily closed for conservation purposes. The museum is open to the public on Tuesdays, Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays from 9:00 AM to 2:00 PM, and on Wednesdays and Thursdays from 9:00 AM to 7:00 PM.
In this context, the exhibition will offer the first opportunity to see the nautical chart, which the island institution acquired this year for 882,000 euros at the Sotheby’s auction house in London.
The acquisition, which adds the object to the island’s public collections, was approved by the Classification, Valuation and Exportation Committee for Spanish Historical Heritage Goods of the Ministry of Culture, which confirmed its heritage value.
The letter thus returns to Mallorca five centuries after it was written, after spending the last forty years in a private collection, and becomes part of the island’s public heritage.
It is a large-format portolan chart (56×94 centimeters) drawn on parchment, written in Latin and Catalan, and decorated with brown ink and hundreds of place names in Gothic script in black and red.
The work is considered the oldest of the author’s ten known navigational charts and one of the most significant examples of the Mallorcan School of Cartography, which flourished on the island between the 13th and 15th centuries.
The exhibition will be officially opened this Friday at the Museum, presided over by the President of the Council of Mallorca, Llorenç Galmés, and the Island Councillor for Culture and Heritage, Antònia Roca.
