This manuscript was once called the 'Harisse 

' because in the nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries it was within the collection Henry Harrisse (1829–1910), who in 1892 published a survey of the works of Agnese in his 'Discovery of North America'. This map however is not within this publication.

This atlas was also not recorded in the census of Agnese portolans published by Henry Wagner in 1931, nor in Pflederer's census of 2009 (although added to its corrigenda in 2011). Using Wagner's classification system, which was based on cartographic details, this atlas would probably belong to Type 3-'A', 'post Californian', but with the new chart of Scotland and the land map of Scandinavia.

This atlas includes thirteen maps beginning with a map of the world, separated into three charts. The fourth chart encompasses Northwest Europe, while the fifth covers Iberia and North Africa. The next three (charts six, seven and eight) map the Mediterranean; charts nine and ten the Black, Marmara and Aegean Seas. 

 eleven is Scandinavia. The last two are world maps: the first an oval world map and the last a Ptolemaic world map. 

Following the thirteen charts and maps, there is a page of Latin text explaining the understanding of the ancients. For example, it presents an estimate of the length of a degree of latitude at about fifty-seven miles and states that if there are 360 degrees in a great circle, then the circumference of the earth must be 20,400 miles. Using a good estimate for the mathematical constant ‘π’ the text then calculates the diameter of the earth and finally the distance from the surface to the centre of the earth. There is also a table of cosmographical distances and diameters of celestial bodies, for example, the distance from the centre of the earth to the planets. 

The nine sea charts each include a small thirty-two-point compass rose set into the lower board of the atlas, rendered in gold and coloured ink, a distinctive feature of numerous atlases signed by or attributed to Agnese. There is also a scale bar in the distinctive Agnese style in the corners of the nine sea charts. The land maps of  Scandinavia, the land map of Northern Europe, the oval world map, and the hemispherical maps of Europe, Africa, and Asia do not contain compass roses. 

Illuminated manuscript on vellum. Seventeen leaves, pasted together back to back and form thirteen double-page charts within a single-line gilt frame (folio dimensions: 255 × 360 mm, dimensions of the gilt frame: 193 × 291mm); place names in Latin, Italian, and Spanish in a small humanistic minuscule; names of countries in square capitals, mostly in ink, now brown, possibly faded from original black; names of principal ports in red; coastlines outlined in blue and green ink, islands mostly in green or gold wash; rhumb lines in alternating red and green ink; the lines of the equator and tropics indicated in gold ink. 

This exquisite portolan atlas illuminated on vellum is one of the jewels of the Sunderland Collection. In its original binding, it contains a delicately drawn diagram of the zodiac, thirteen detail-rich double-page maps, and a thirty-two-point compass inset into the lower board. It was created by 

, a luxury mapmaker who produced highly prized and beautifully decorated manuscript atlases for elite patrons, including Emperor Charles V, Phillip II of Spain, and Henry VIII of England. This manuscript has its own distinguished provenance from the collection of the eminent cartographic historian Henry Harrisse (1829–1910).

During the late fifteenth century, portolan maps began to lose their function as a navigational tools and instead were produced as luxury works of art. Astonishingly beautiful artefacts, these maps are often embellished in gold and silver, and rich in both ornament and detail. The atlases by 

 are extremely lavish, each display his distinctive style. He signed twenty-five atlases and is possibly the author of an additional fifty-two. While Agnese's mostly produced atlases, there is also evidence that he produced a few individual charts. Among the maps included in this atlas are tables of the declination of the sun, an image of an armillary sphere, a two-page zodiacal diagram, as well as a short treatise in Latin on cosmographical dimensions.

Despite the lack of any supporting documentary evidence, it is generally accepted that, rather than working on his own, Agnese must have operated an atelier in Venice in order to achieve his high cartographic output. It is easy to imagine a production process in which one person prepared the sheets of vellum, another drew the coastal outlines, another entered the place names, and so on.

World map with windheads

Compass Rose

Armillary Sphere

Zodiac

Tropics

Atlantic

Indian Ocean

Europe

Iberia

Western Mediterranean 

Italy 

Eastern Mediterranean 

Black Sea

Aegean 

Scandinavia 

The ancient known world

Compass embedded in cover

This atlas is a previously unrecorded example of the work of 

; and an exquisitely bound manuscript atlas. The atlas remains in its original binding and codicological order. It contains the more or less standard preliminary pages found in most Agnese atlases, including a table of the declination of the sun, an armillary sphere, and a circular zodiacal calendar.

 binding commissioned by the mapmaker’s workshop in Venetian gold-tooled reddish-brown morocco over wooden boards; the covers panelled with gilt fillets into two frames, the inner one with four small gilt rosettes at the corners and the central compartment with a lozenge-shaped ornament, with four brass hand clasps; thirty-two-point compass rose drawn inset under mica to lower board.

Portolan Atlas by Agnese