The Catalan Atlas represents an extraordinary synthesis of portolan cartography, cosmography, commercial information, and political representation of the known world. Commissioned by Peter IV of Aragon around 1375, it integrates across six parchment panels the most complete image of the world available in late medieval Europe, including the Far East according to Marco Polo's accounts. Its author, Abraham Cresques, belonged to the Majorcan Jewish community specialized in cartography and the construction of nautical instruments, a specific cultural tradition that the generic label of "medieval European cartography" tends to erase.