CLAUDIUS CLAVUS 



should be a gulf on the north side of the Scandinavian peninsula. 

 According to representations like that of the Lambert map at 

 Ghent (cf. p. i88), this arm of the sea had the same form as 

 that on the south side of Scandinavia, and there should only 

 be a narrow isthmus between these two arms of the sea, 

 connecting the peninsula with the mainland [cf. Saxo]. On 

 the Nancy map, too, the north coast of Scandinavia is drawn 

 almost exactly like the south coast, with the same number of 

 promontories and bays, which correspond very nearly even 

 in their shape. In this way Clavus's " Nordhindh Bondh " 

 (Nordbotn), also called " Tenebrosum mare" (i.e., the dark 

 sea) or " Quietum mare" (the motionless sea), may have 

 originated. This remarkable bay is connected on his map 

 with the Baltic by a canal (which is also mentioned in the 

 Vienna text). By this means Scandinavia really becomes 

 an island. Clavus cannot have acquired such an idea from 

 any known source, although, as already mentioned, Saxo 

 says that it is nearly an island (p. 223) ; but similar con- 

 ceptions seem to have arisen in Italy (cf. above on Pietro 

 Vesconte's mappamundi, p. 223). 



The south coast of Norway (with " Stauanger ") and the 

 southern point of Greenland retained on Clavus's map the 

 same relation of latitude, a difference of 13^°, as the corre- 

 sponding localities on the Medici map, with very nearly the 

 same degrees of latitude as on the latter, if we there employ 

 a scale of latitude calculated upon this map's representation 

 of Spain (the straits of Gibraltar) and France (Brittany), and 

 use Ptolemy's latitudes for these countries. This has been 

 done in the reproduction of the Medicean mappamundi on 

 p. 236.^ The scale of longitude is calculated in the same 



1 As there is considerable difference between the coast-lines of Europe on 

 Ptolemy's maps and those on the Medici maps, one's scale of latitude will vary 

 according to the points one may choose for determining it. The points here 

 given were the first I tried, and as the resulting scale seems to agree remark- 

 ably well with Clavus's later map I have kept to it, although of course Clavus 

 may have proceeded in a somewhat different way in determining the scale on 

 his map; in particular he seems on the older map to have arranged it so that 



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