764 GEOGRAPHICAL LATITUDE. 



lougitude,! Leiewel says that the "produits cartographiques de cette 

 epoqne prouveiit que toutes les cartes arabes fureut elaborees sur les 

 latitudes et les distances."^ He seems to have beeu unaware of the 

 fact that the geographers regarded as too coufusing — aud so neglected 

 to use on their maps — the mathematical determination of places fixed 

 by the astronomers.^ They employed theoretically the division of the 

 circle into degrees and minutes for giving in lists the position of in- 

 dividual places, but seem to have preferred as a general division of 

 their maps that into climates, of which they reckoned only seven, con- 

 necting them with the seven planets.* Though in the ninth century 

 they were satisfied with a degree of accuracy in determining latitude 

 ai)proaching to one-third or one-sixth of the truth, they improved 

 greatly later, and made some very exact observations, including two 

 correct to the minute, viz, those of Toledo and Bagdad.^ 



It is to this people that we must look for much influence, direct and 

 indirect, in the renaissance of classical learning in Christian Europe. 

 As early as in the tenth century we catch a faint glimmer of reflected 

 light in the field of geograj)hy in a globe made for Pope Sylvester ii,'^ 

 who had studied in Mohammedan Spain. In the middle of the twelfth 

 century there was to be found at the Court of Roger a copy of 

 Ptolemy's geogra]>hy, and there still exists a thirteenth-century copy 

 thereof in Venice;" but being in the original tongue, which was as a 

 sealed book to the Italians of that period, it probably had no influ- 

 ence on the development of the science.^ The first Latin translation 

 of Ptolemy was made in 1405 by a Florentine named Angelo, and 

 gradually found its way into all the countries of Europe.^ This was 

 contemporaneous with the opening of the period of oceanic discoveries 

 under Henry the Sailor of Portugal. From this time the influence of 

 Ptolemy was great,^" gradually driving out the itineraries aud works of 



1 Peschel, Endkunde, 146. 



^Bresl. Ed., i, Ixxvi. 



speschel, Erdkunde, 146. 



■■Leiewel, Br. Ed., I, xxxviii. Leiewel, Table v, gives the climates of Abraham 

 Bar Haiia Espagnol, 1136, bordered respectively by the equator and the parallels of 

 150, 24°, 30°, 36^', 40°, 4r)0, and 48", for which he calculated that the longest day of 

 each would be half an hour longer aud the shortest half an hour shorter than that of 

 the next one to the south. Aboulfeda, 1331, gives another division as follows : I, from 

 12|o to 20^0; II, to 27°: III, to 33^°; IV, to SSrVCj y, to 43i"; VI, to 47^0; VII, to 

 50^^^. (7&(VZ., Table xiii.) 



5 Peschel, Erdkuude, p. 136 n. 1. 



"Santarem, i, 184. 



'Leiewel, Br. Ed., 11, 122. 



« In the mean time much had been learned from the Mohammedans ; and Leiewel, 

 I, xciv, iinds a direct connection between their work aud that of Delisle, D'Anville, 

 and Bonne, and says, also, p. Ixxxii: "Les notions cartographiques d'Alfragau, 

 d'Albateni, d'Arzakhel, passaient dans la langue latine, par les ouvrages de Gerard 

 de Cr^mone(1187), de Sacrobosco (1250), de Bacon (1294), de Cecco (1327). 



■^Ibid., II, 123.124. 



^oSantarem, i, 177. Leiewel, Br. Ed., 11, 104. 



