Duo Mundi

Duo mundi: Important works for an important house

The Fra’ Mauro World Map, measuring 136×136 cm, and the Armenian Map, measuring 358×120 cm, transform any space into a private gallery. Two works that express conscious luxury, art, culture, and inner depth, while maintaining a restrained elegance, far removed from excess.

Both preserved in Italy—the Fra Mauro World Map at the Marciana National Library in Venice and the Armenian Map at the University Library of Bologna (Marsili Collection)—these works intertwine cartography and human destiny. They narrate explorations and trade, pilgrimages and conversions, encounters and wonders: the mysteries of lands near and far that still speak to our inner selves today.

The objects themselves have a compelling story that has brought them to us: an embedded biography. Traces of hands, travels, restorations, and custodians that today are part of the work itself—and its allure.

For example, the original of Fra Mauro’s Globe is preserved at the Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana in Venice. Venetian monastic sources also document a commission from the Portuguese Crown and the dispatch of a copy to Lisbon in 1459, but nothing more is known about that copy: only the Crown’s requests remain. Mystery…? The fact remains that the only extant copy is the one we reproduced in facsimile—from the same series, exhibited at the Quirinale Palace in the exhibition From the Ancient to the New Silk Road, and shown by Chinese President Xi Ping to Prime Minister Meloni during her visit to China.

For example, the Tabula Chorographica Armenica (1691) was forgotten in the deposits and resurfaced only in 1991, when it was found in Roll 24 of the Marsili Collection during preparations for an exhibition at the University Library of Bologna.

Why buy these two products together?

Duo mundi is a prestigious combo, worthy of a head of state: Fra’ Mauro’s Mappamondo and Mappa Armena transform the home into a warm and elegant private gallery. It’s a cultured luxury, furnishing and warming the rooms with restrained gilding and profound narratives—never excessive, never gaudy.

TECHNICAL DATA – FRA MAURO’S 1:2 SCALE WORLD MAP

• Location of the original: Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana in Venice – Italy
• Dating of the original: 1448 – 1460 AD.
• Dimensions of the facsimile: width 136 cm × length 136 cm (scale 1:2)
• Globe Material: Paper with hand-applied gold leaf decorations
• Frame material: solid larch (like the foundations of Venice), beech friezes, gessoing, sanding, application of bole and gold leaf patina
• Historical importance: a symbolic work of medieval cartography; a facsimile was shown to Prime Minister Meloni during her visit to China (July 2024)
• Number of exclusive copies available: 9
• Publisher: Imago, Rimini
• Condition: New
• 24 mounth warranty

WHAT YOU ARE PURCHASING

• 1:2 scale reproduction of Fra Mauro’s World Map, in three-dimensional facsimile
• Critical commentary
• Luxury box made of eco-sustainable cardboard or, optionally, plexiglass display case
• Certificate of the olive tree donated to Salento
• Certificate of authenticity, “colophon.” It contains the following information: title of the work, owner, print run, number of the work, date, followed by the stamp and signature of the owner (usually a public library), stamp and signature of the publisher, stamp and signature of a Notary Public of the Italian Republic.
• Exclusive access to the Antiquus reserved area with in-depth digital content

HISTORY AND CURIOSITIES

The World Map was commissioned by the Portuguese King Alfonso V from the Monastery of San Michele. Fra Mauro, a Camaldolese monk and one of the most authoritative cartographers of his time, worked on it for years alongside skilled collaborators.

Despite recorded payments and reminders from the Portuguese crown, it seems the work never reached Lisbon. Instead, it remained in Venice, preserved in its precious larch frame, the same wood that has supported the foundations of the lagoon city for centuries.

It is curious and fascinating to know that Fra Mauro never left the island of San Michele, opposite Venice.

The globe is not only a scientific representation of the then-known world, but a veritable repository of stories, legends, memories, and travel experiences. The tales of merchants, navigators, and ambassadors of the Serenissima were collected and transformed into geography, enriching the map with details, inscriptions (over 3,000 textual notes), and miniatures.

At the four corners of the work appear four symbolic representations:

At the top left, a Ptolemaic cosmological diagram;
At the top right, the diagram of the four elements (earth, water, fire, air);
At the bottom left, the Garden of Eden, located outside the world rather than in the Far East;
At the bottom right, the Earth as a globe, with the North Pole, South Pole, Equator, and Tropics, surprisingly modern for its time.

The solid larch wood frame, enriched with friezes and patinated with gold leaf, faithfully reproduces the original, giving the facsimile a refinement that makes it not only a collector’s item, but also a true jewel of decorative art.

TECHNICAL DATA – ARMENIAN MAP

• Dimensions: 358 cm by 120 cm
• Material: Paper glued to canvas like the original
  Fine art print
• Application: 23K gold brush by hand
• Condition: new with certificate of authenticity and item number
• Publishing house: Imago Rimini
• 24 mounth warranty

WHAT YOU ARE PURCHASING

• The facsimile of the Armenian map Tabula Chorographica Armenica in full size 1:1 scale
• Critical commentary and historical-artistic apparatus revealing its secrets
  Choice of packaging: luxury eco-friendly cardboard box or plexiglass display frame
• Certificate of the olive tree donated to Salento (Olivami project)
• Certificate of authenticity “colophon” with edition number

The facsimile reproduces exactly the dimensions, the material used and the 23-carat gold decorations which are applied manually

HISTORY AND CURIOSITIES

In 1691, Luigi Ferdinando Marsili of Bologna commissioned Eremia Çelebi Kömürcüyan (with his son Tēr Malakʿia), an Armenian intellectual from Constantinople, to create a large map of the “situation” of the Armenian Church. Thus was born the Tabula Chorographica Armenica: tempera and ink on paper, 16 sheets glued to canvas, monumental format 358 × 120 cm. It is a product of cultural diplomacy between the Ottoman world and Italy.

After Marsili’s death, the map slipped into obscurity for three centuries, until in 1991 — while preparing the exhibition Explorations in the Library — it was rediscovered in the deposits of the University Library of Bologna, with the shelfmark Fondo Marsili, rot. 24. Since then it has been studied and exhibited, reaching international prominence with the exhibition “Armenia!” at the Metropolitan Museum (2018–2019).

In 2023, BUB began digitizing the scroll (front and back) in high definition (gigapixel) with the support of the Carisbo Foundation. The result is available online and projected in large format in the exhibition “Armenian Traces” (February 17, 2023): a model for enhancing the Marsili Collection.