FIFTEENTH CENTURY MAPS 



Its representation of Europe, with the Mediterranean on the 

 southern side of the earth's disc, is very imperfect and far re- 

 moved from reality. The same is the case with its delineation 

 of the North, but, curiously enough, its Scandinavia, which is 



North-western portion of Fra Mauro's mappamundi (of 1457- 

 59), preserved at Venice. The legends and most of the names 

 are omitted. (The south should be at the top) 

 different from that of the compass-charts, and in which Skane 

 forms a peninsula on the south, to the east of Denmark, has a 

 greater resemblance to reality than that of other maps of this 

 time. This map, too, has a chain of mountains along the north 

 coast of the continent, as in the Vesconte maps [see Norden- 

 skiold, 1897, pi. xxxix]. 



285 



