MEDIiEVAL CARTOGRAPHY 



by going straight to nature as it is, unfettered by dogmas. 

 The Italian and Catalan sailors followed later with their 

 portulans (sailing-books) and compass-charts. 



We find what is perhaps the oldest known Christian map 

 of the world (cf. Vol. 

 I, p. 126) in the 

 " Christian T o p o g- 

 raphy " of Cosmas 

 Indicopleustes.^ A n 

 attempt is made to 

 combine the Roman 

 classical view of the 

 world, as lands grouped 

 round the Mediter- 

 ranean, with Cosmas's 

 pious conception of it 

 as formed on the same 

 rectangular plan as 

 the Jews' tabernacle. 

 A map of the world 

 of somewhat similar 

 form is found in a 

 MS. (by Orosius and ^^P °^ ^^^ ^^''^^ f^°"^ ^^^' ^" Languedoc, 

 T ,. TT • \ r also called the Merovingian map (eighth 



Juhus Honorius) of ^^^^^^^^ ^^^ ^^^^ .^ ^^ ^^^ ^^p^ ^^^ 



the eighth century, Mediterranean in the middle, and the 



preserved in the universal ocean outside, with its three bays: 



library at Albi in *^^ Caspian Sea, the Persian Gulf, and the 



_ , -r. , Red Sea 



Languedoc, But these 



attempts must be regarded as accidental. Typical of that time 

 were the so-called wheel- or T-maps, the shape of which was 

 due especially to Isidore Hispaliensis (cf. Vol. I, pp. 151 f.). 

 The circular Roman maps of the world seem already to have 

 had a tendency to a tripartition of the world: Europe, Asia 

 and Africa. Sallust (in the " Bellum Jugurthinum ") indicates 

 something of the sort, and Orosius's geographical system 



1 The Florentine MS. of it dates from the ninth century. 



183 



