CLAUDIUS CLAVUS 



to the Dane, Claudius Clausson Swart, usually called in Latin 

 Claudius Clavus (sometimes, also, Nicolaus Niger). He wa? 

 born in Fiinen, traveled about Europe, and, as shown by- 

 Storm [1891, pp. 17 f.], was probably the "Nicolaus Gothus" 

 who is mentioned at Rome in January, 1424, and who is 

 reported to have there given out that he had seen a copy of 

 Livy in the monastery of Soro, near Roskilde (which was 

 probably a romance on his part). We are told that he was 

 a man of acute intelligence, but a rover, and unsteady. His 

 subsequent history is unknown. As a supplement to Ptolemy's 

 " Geography," which just at that time (1409) was becoming 

 known in western Europe in a Latin translation, he made, prob- 

 ably, in Italy, two maps of the North, with accompanying de- 

 scriptions. The maps must have been drawn either by himself 

 or with his help. They are the first maps known in western 

 Europe which are furnished, after the model of Ptolemy 

 (or Marinos), with lines of latitude and longitude,^ and they 

 thus mark the beginning of a more scientific cartography and 

 geography in western Europe.^ 



His first map (the Nancy map) must have been drawn 

 between the years 141 3 and 1427, probably between 1424 

 and 1427; but it can never have been widely known, as it 

 has excercised no noticeable influence on the cartography of 

 the succeeding period. The French cardinal Filastre 

 (ob. 1428), who was staying in Rome in 1427, became ac- 



1 The famous Roger Bacon is said to have already made an attempt, before 

 Ptolemy's " Geography " was known, to draw a map according to mathematical 

 determinations of locality; but the map is lost [Roger Bacon, Opus majus, foL 

 186-189]. The title of Nicholas of Lynn's book is said to have been: " Inventio 

 f ortunata qui liber incipet a gradu 54, usque ad polum " (i.e., " which book be- 

 gins [in its description] at 54° [and goes] as far as the pole ") [cf. Hakluyt, 

 Princ. Nav,, 1903, p. 303]. This may show that degrees were already in use 

 at that time (1360) for geographical description. 



" On Claudius Clavus see in particular Storm's work of fundamental im- 

 portance (1880-1891), and the valuable monograph by Bjornbo and Petersen 

 (1904, 1909) also A. A. Bjorno (1910). Cf. further Nordenskiold [1897, p. 

 86 f.], V. Wieser [Peterm. Mitteilungen, xlv. 1899, pp. 119 f.], Jos. Fischer 

 [1902, cap. 5], and others. 



249 



