Mažai žinomas Klaipėdos ir apylinkių piešinys 1586 m. jūrlapyje

LTReikšminiai žodžiai: Kartografija; 16 amžius; Klaipėda; Rankraščiai; Cartography; 16th century; Manuscripts.

ENBy digitising and publicising their exhibits, European archives, libraries and museums are opening up an increasing number of historical sources to a wider audience. This publication deals with a late 16th-century manuscript rutter (a nautical book of sailing directions), created by an unknown Dutch cartographer, and bearing the French title Recveil et povrtraict d’avlcvnes villes maritimes et plvs memorables ports et levrs advenves et marcques servantes a la navigation en la mer oceane. The manuscript is held by the National Library of Spain (Biblioteca Nacional de España) and was thoroughly described by Günter Schilder in 1991. This presentation focuses on two charts out of 24 charts depicting coastlines from La Rochelle to Tallinn in the manuscript that depict the waterways along the shores of the Baltic Sea, the coasts of the Duchy of Courland and Semigallia and the Duchy of Prussia, in a stretch between Memel (Klaipėda) and Danzig (Gdańsk). The drawings show coastlines seen from the sea, as if from a bird’s-eye view, and provide an opportunity to reflect on a view of this stretch of Baltic coast that sailors saw at the time. According to collected data on the depth of the water in the Curonian Lagoon, the author concludes that the drawings present reliable information, probably because they were created based on information provided by sailors. However, the precision of the information is apparently not absolute, as the site 7 Berge (Seven hills), shown between Liepāja and Klaipėda by later sources, was localised here between Ventspils and Liepāja. The charts are also interesting in that they contain a drawing of the town and castle of Memel (Klaipėda) and its surroundings, which was so far not known in the historiography of Klaipėda. It is safe to assume that the 1586 drawings are some of the earliest cartographic sources representing Klaipėda and its surroundings. [From the publication]