"FLORIDA" ON CANTINO MAP 139 



A brief summary is all that need here be given, 

 inasmuch as the relevant geographical conceptions 

 have been discussed in detail in the previous studies. 

 Ptolem}' made the known world to extend over ap- 

 proximately 1 80° from west to east. Marinus of 

 Tyre made this area extend over 225°. Columbus 

 believed, with Marinus of Tyre, that the land from 

 Cape St. Vincent in Portugal to Cattigara at the 

 eastern limit of the known world covered 225° of 

 longitude. The work of the medieval geographers 

 had added to the world as known to the ancients 

 approximately 60°; hence 285° had been accounted 

 for before the voyage of 1492. According to the 

 reckoning of Columbus, counting from the west east- 

 wards, there should be 285° from the first meridian 

 to the extreme point of Asia, the Cabo do fim do 

 abrill, or Cape Alpha et Omega, which would leave 

 75° from the same starting point westwards to the 

 mainland of Asia. The western end of Espaiiola 

 was usually placed between 50° and 60° west of the 

 first meridian; as a consequence, the eastern end of 

 Cuba, being immediately opposite the western end 

 of Espanola, was between 15° and 25° too far east to 

 represent eastern Asia according to these calcula- 

 tions. \A'hen, therefore, a cartographer drew a map 

 of the entire world, the mainland of Asia had to be 

 placed, according to the existing theory, at a greater 

 distance across the Atlantic. What followed was 

 that the Columbian theory was used in plotting the 

 chart westward across the Atlantic; whereas the 



