[o'briex] CABOT'S LANDFALL AND CHART 4SS 



latitude of a city. Tlie course is steered to that point. Now Ptolemy 

 gives the latitude of the western mouth of the Tanais, the one nearer 

 Venice, as 54.10, and tliat of the mouth of the Bristol Channel as 54.30. 

 Hence, Bristol was above Tanais, and part of the country of Tanais was 

 still lower. 



But Cabot was not confined to Ptolemy for a knowledge of the 

 latitude of Tanais. "We must bear in mind the editions of Ptolemy 

 sought to give' a faithful copy of the original, and carefully excluded 

 corrections. They were not used as manuals of instruction, but only 

 as now for reference in regard to early geography. Bertius' edition of 

 1618 is a proof of this. No one, I take; it, will maintain that the lati- 

 tude of a place so well known and frequented yearly by so many ships 

 as we have seen Tanais was, could have been unknown, especially to the 

 Venetians. Skilful navigators visited these waters and certainly took 

 observations. For some' reason the latitude of the time was about two 

 degrees too high, but it was not six. They soon ascertained that 

 Ptolemy was four degrees astray. 



"VVe are not left to conjecture me'rely on this point, we have posi- 

 tive proof that in the great schools of Italy, the study of cartography 

 was ardently pursued. We shall confine our remarks to the fourteenth 

 and fifteenth centuries. We shall quote largely from Tiraboschi.^ 



In the Imperial Library of Vienna there were preserved in Tira, 

 boschi's time, "nine nautical charts," the work of Peter Vesconte in 

 1318, and in the Eoyal library at Parma a cosmographical map six feet 

 square, done in parchment, by "Francisco Pingano, a Venetian, 1368." 

 On it are numbers which seem to indicate the' degrees of latitude: cities, 

 harbours, anchorage and rocks are marked. 



In 1457, Alfonso V. of Portugal, gave an order to Fra Mauro, of 

 the Monastery of Murano, near Venice, for a planisphere for the use of 

 sailors. This monk had already made one on which the Portuguese dis- 

 coveries were marked. The new one was completed in 1459 and sent to 

 Lisbon. A gold medal was struck in the monk's honour, on which he 

 was designated as "Cosmographus incompiarabilis." In 1471, Grazioso 

 Be'necasa published six maritime charts, and in 1479, Antonio Leonard! 

 gave to the world two geographical m'aps. In 1480, a complete treatise 

 of geography by Berlinghieri appeared. Tiraboschi says it was not a 

 mere translation of Ptolemy, although use had be'en made of his work, 

 tlie style was better and the edition more correct. 



Seven other nautical maps published shortly after 1459 were also 

 in the Imperial Library of Vienna. We could easily add to this list but 



1 Storia della Letteratura Italiana, Tom. VL 



Sec. II., 1899. 28. 



