Photos courtesy of Gallery Bartele
As Indonesia prepares to celebrate 66 years of independence is an appropriate moment, the clock to turn back 560 years to the mid-15 th century before a European power was entitled to parts of the archipelago located , and marvel at the impact a dozen islands in the east of the archipelago, and not occupy more than 240 square kilometers, have had on world history and cartography. The dozen islands are called, of course, the fabled "Spice Islands" of Maluku, the Holy Grail of European Renaissance explorers and traders adventurers; Bartolomeu Diaz, Vaco da Gama, Ferdinand Magellan, Francis Drake and even Christopher Columbus, while sailing westward from Spain, firmly believed that its landfall in the Caribbean part of the Asian continent and that was close to the Spice Islands. The coveted spices were cloves, nutmeg, mace and pepper but is limited with all these in the Moluccas Islands, the only place on earth where the plants were growing; Clove trees in the fertile volcanic soil of Ternate, Tidore, Machian, Bachian, Morti and Potter Backers and nutmeg trees in the equally fertile volcanic soil bulk Banda (Lontar), Neira, running, road and Rozengain. Pepper vines grew well in the archipelago, but were in the southern tip of Sumatra (Lampung today) and in Aceh.
The spice trade is an ancient and 1,500 years before Vasco da Gama three small focuses caravels 1497 via the Cape of Good Hope reached India, the Romans sent annual fleets of 0 ships on the return trip to India Spices collect from Arab merchants who dominated trade and to extraordinary lengths were the sources of spices to keep secret. Before sea route to India was at the end of the 15 opened th century, spices reached Venice, the center for distribution in Europe, through various land routes of "Silk Road" including, with short combined voyages across the Mediterranean once the Arab sailors had carried the precious cargo from the Far East to India and from there to the entrepôt ports in the Middle East such as Aden and Cairo. This well-established sales network in 14 stopped th century and was only seriously challenged and eventually broken when the Portuguese reached the Moluccas in 1512, followed nearly a century later by the Dutch and wrested control of the spice trade from the Arabs.
exploratory trips along the west coast of Africa by the Portuguese, initially under the patronage of Prince Henry of Portugal, called "The Navigator", 1418-1460, then by King Alfonso V 1461-1481 and finally rounded the Cape of good hope of King John II in whose reign Bartolomeu Diaz in 1488 set cartography and navigation on a scientific basis and started a revolution in the ocean-going ship design, armament and logistics ship. tended for the past 1,000 years which are only a few cards were to be based on church doctrine and were little more than diagrams and symbolic representations of the continents of the earth to Jerusalem centered and paradise is somewhere in the east; often referred to as T-O configuration of their forms due. Since the Middle Ages came to an end, more accurate and specific geographic information has been compiled from various sources added, together with color, such cards, which transforms in spectacular circular world maps or Mappa Mundi. , made such an example and the largest of its kind around 0 by Richard of Haldingham can in Hereford Cathedral and in facsimile form in Bartele Gallery.
watch Insvlae Molvccae. One of the rarest cards in the world - Photos courtesy of Bartele Gallery
from 1512, when the Portuguese vessels reached the Moluccas, to the beginning of the 16 th century, the Portuguese carried a sea empire extends founded to Macau from Brazil. They refined the portolan, revived the spherical geometry of Claudius Ptolemy, the Greek father of modern geodesy, detailed maps and diagrams of their empire to provide, including South-East Asia and the Spice Islands, based on latitude and longitude, and began as the unrolling the map of the world to do the process as we know it today. The highlight of the Portuguese cartography of the spice islands located in the beautiful card seen Insulae Moluccae This beautiful and incredibly rare card in 1592 by the Flemish cartographer Petrus Plancius from Portuguese charts and itineraries (Rutter) together acquired, first in years was published in 1598, points to a level of detail never before recorded Indonesia and along its bottom edge contains engravings of spices and other exotic goods such as sandalwood, which held the world spellbound for millennia. taken the terrifying risks of seafarers and traders the Spice Islands reach were offset by the huge profits to be made from the spice trade, where a kilo of nutmeg in Amsterdam would sell the purchase price in 1650 for nearly 00 times in Banda.
David is a soil scientist who lives and works more than 30 years in Indonesia. He is the author of the cartography of the East Indies and curator of Bartele gallery.
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