IN NORTHERN MISTS 



The best known fifteenth-century map of the world is 

 that of Fra Mauro (1457-59), which is also drawn in wheel- 

 form and is preserved at Venice. The coast-lines are taken 

 to a great extent from the compass-charts, but a great deal of 

 new matter has been added. As regards Norway, this consists 

 of information from Querini's voyage in 1432, as well as from 

 other sources which are unknown to us; this is indicated by, 

 among other things, an inscription on the sea to the north 

 of Russia (Permia), which relates that a short time before 

 two Catalan ships had sailed thither [cf. Vangensten, 19 10]. 

 On this map the Scandinavian peninsula has been given a 

 more reasonable extension to the north; but the west 

 coast is very imaginatively supplied with peninsulas and islands, 

 while the ocean outside is full of fabulous islands and contains 

 many legends. 



Denmark (Datia) has been made into an island (which is also called Isola 

 islandia), and the Baltic (Sinus germanicus) has been widened into an inland 

 sea with islands. In its northern part is a note that on this sea the use of the 

 compass is unknown [cf. Vangensten, 1910]. Could this inscription be due 

 to a misunderstanding like that on the Walsperger map in the ocean to the 

 north-west of Norway, that it could not be navigated on account of magnets 

 (cf. p. 283)? There is no hint of the name of Greenland on this map; on the 

 other hand, Iceland appears in three or four different places. Besides Den- 

 mark, as mentioned above, there is in northern Norway or Finland a penin- 

 sula named Islant, "where wicked people dwell, who are not Christians"; also 

 a large island Ixilandia, north-west of Ireland, and finally an intricate penin- 

 sula in the middle of Norway called Isola di giaza (i.e., the island of ice). On 

 the north of Norway or Finland a peninsula projects into the Polar Sea with 

 the name of Scandinabia. The map does not contribute anything new of im- 

 portance about the North, but points to a few fresh pieces of information 

 about Norway, which are not to be traced in the older compass-charts; thus 

 Bergen comes nearly in its right place on the west coast, and Marstrand ap- 

 pears to the east of Christianiafjord. 



A picture of the North of a wholly different type is given 

 on the elliptical Genoese mappamundi (of 1447 or 1457), 

 which is still more fantastic than any of those hitherto men- 

 tioned. The Scandinavian peninsula has a very long extension 

 to the west, and ends in a promontory projecting northward. 

 To the north of this Scandinavia there is another fantastic 

 peninsula where Lelewel thinks he can read the name, Grin- 

 286 



