Other Catalans are Jahuda Cresques, a Jew of Barcelona, the
supposed author of the famous Catalan map of the world (1375),
Guglielmo Solerio (1384), Mecia de Viladestes (1413–1433)
Gabriel de Valleseche (1439–1447) and Pietro
Roselli, a pupil of Beccario of Genoa (1462).
These maps were originally intended for the use of seamen navigating the Mediterranean and the coasts of the Atlantic, but in the course of time they were extended to the mainland and ultimately developed into maps of the whole world as then known. Thus Pizigano’s map of 1367 extends as far east as the Gulf of Persia, whilst the Medicean map of 1356 (at Florence) is remarkable on account of a fairly correct delineation of the Caspian, the Shari river in Africa, and the correct direction given to the west coast of India, which had already been pointed out in a letter of the friar Giovanni da Montecorvino of 1252. Most of the expansions of Portolano maps into maps of the world are circular in shape, and resemble the wheel maps of an earlier period. This is the character of the map of Petrus Vesconte of 1320 (fig. 21), of Giovanni Leardo (1448) and of a Catalan map of 1450. Jerusalem occupies the centre of these maps, Arab sources of information are largely drawn upon, while Ptolemy is neglected and contemporary travellers are ignored. Far superior to these maps is Fra Mauro’s map (1457), for the author has availed himself not only of the information collected by Marco Polo and earlier travellers, but was able, by personal intercourse, to gather additional information from Nicolo de’ Conti, who had returned from the east in 1440, and more especially from Abyssinians who lived in Italy at that time. His delineation of Abyssinia, though unduly spread over a wide area, is indeed wonderfully correct.
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| Fig. 23.—Catalan Map of the World (1375). |
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| Fig. 24.—Genoese Map (1457). |
Very different in character is the Catalan map of 1375, for its author, discarding Ptolemy, shows India as a peninsula. On the other hand, an anonymous Genoese would-be reformer of maps (1457; fig. 24), still adheres to the erroneous Ptolemaic delineation of southern Asia, and the same error is perpetuated by Henricus Marvellus Germanus on a rough map showing the Portuguese discoveries up to 1489. None of these maps is graduated, but if we give the Mediterranean a length of 3000 Portolano miles, equivalent in 36° N. to 41°, then the longitudinal extent of the old world as measured on the Genoese map of 1457 would be 136° instead of 177° or more as given by Ptolemy.
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| Fig. 25.—Claudius Clavus Swartha (1427). |
The Revival of Ptolemy.—Ptolemy’s great work became known in western Europe after Jacobus Angelus de Scarparia had translated it into Latin in 1410. This version was first printed in 1475 at Vicenza, but its contents had become known through MS. copies before this, and their study influenced the construction of maps in two respects. They led firstly to the addition of degree lines to maps, and secondly to the compilation of new maps of those countries which had been inadequately represented by Ptolemy. Thus Claudius Clavus Swartha (Niger), who was at Rome in 1424, compiled a map of the world, extending westward as far as Greenland. The learned Cardinal Nicolaus Krebs, of Cusa (Cues) on the Moselle, who died 1464, drew a map of Germany which was first published in 1491; D. Nicolaus Germanus, a monk of Reichenbach, in 1466 prepared a set of Ptolemy’s maps on a new projection with converging meridians; and Paolo del Pozzo Toscanelli in 1474 compiled a new chart on a rectangular projection, which was to guide the explorer across the western ocean to Cathay and India.
Of the seven editions of Ptolemy which were published up to the close of the 15th century, all except that of Vicenza (1475) contained Ptolemy’s 27 maps, while Francesco Berlinghieri’s version (Florence 1478), and two editions published at Ulm (1482 and 1486), contained four or five modern maps in addition, those of Ulm being by Nicolaus Germanus.
The geographical ideas which prevailed at the time Columbus started in search of Cathay may be most readily gathered from two contemporary globes, the one known as the Laon globe because it was picked up in 1860 at a curiosity shop in that town, the other produced at Nuremberg in 1492 by Martin Behaim.[1] The Laon globe is of copper gilt, and has a diameter of 170 mm. The information which it furnishes, in spite of a legend intended to lead us to believe that it presents us with the results of Portuguese explorations up to the year 1493, is of more ancient date. The Nuremberg globe is a work of a more ambitious order. It was undertaken at the suggestion of George Holzschuher, a travelled member of the town council. The work was entrusted to Martin Behaim, who had resided for six years in Portugal and the Azores, and was believed to be a thoroughly qualified cosmographer.
- ↑ E. G. Ravenstein, Martin Behaim, his Life and his Globe (London, 1908). On the original only equator, ecliptics, tropics, polar circles and one meridian 80° to the west of Lisbon are laid down.
