How the Portolan Map Reflected Renaissance Humanism

The Portolan Map was created in the 16th century for the purpose of exploration, but even though this map was created after the golden age of the Renaissance it still displays classic humanistic ideals. Although this map has a prominent display of secular, and individual principles this map lacks classical values. One individual observation that I made is the artwork of different animals and flags on several continents. This expresses individualism because its showing the strict separation of the different ethnicities, and nationality’s. On the other hand there are several secular references that are eminently present. To start off the size of the emblems of flags are identically proportionate to Jesus Christ.

This message that governments have the same superiority contrast to the churches believe that the Holy Spirit is the sole leader of all his followers. Secondly the use of Portuguese for its text is immensely secular because it’s not written in the official language of Catholicism, Latin. The third secular example is the drawings of ships because builders used math and science to create them. My final example is the navigation tactics that were used by explorers. I found these tactics were secular because sailors used math and science to calculate wind direction. Overall the Portolan map is an excellent example of the Renaissance effect on the age exploration.