42 MAPS AND THEIR MAKERS 



perhaps to some extent deliberate — for two years before the 

 composition of this map, we hear of the Infant John demand- 

 ing a map "well executed and drawn with its East and West" 

 and figuring ''all that could be shown of the West and of the 

 Strait (of Gibraltar) leading to the West". The Infant, in 

 other words, was interested, not in northern Europe and Asia 

 or in southern Africa, but in the Orient and the western 

 Ocean. The cartographer satisfied him by cutting out, as it 

 were, an east-west rectangle from a circular world map which 

 would cover the desired area. 



Later Catalan maps, e.g. the Este map, retained the circular 

 form. The shape of the map, therefore, must not be taken as 

 evidence on questions such as the extent or form of the African 

 continent ; nor does the change from a circular to a rectangular 

 frame indicate specifically any change in ideas relating to the 

 shape of the earth. As an astronomer, Cresques accepted its 

 sphericity. 



The sources of the Catalan Atlas fall into three groups: 

 (1) elements derived from the typical circular world-map of 

 medieval times; (2) the outlines of the Black Sea, Mediter- 

 ranean, and the coasts of western Europe based on the 'normal' 

 portolan chart; (3) details drawn from the narratives of the 

 thirteenth- and fourteenth-century travellers in Asia, which 

 transformed the cartographic representation of that continent. 



The influence of the medieval world map may be seen in 

 many features: Jerusalem, though not so strongly emphasized, 

 is still approximately in the centre of the map ; a portion of the 

 original circumference of the circular map forms the coastline 

 of north-east Asia, with the 'Caspian' mountains still enclosing 

 the tribes of Gog and Magog; the large island of 'Taperobane' 

 occupies approximately the same position as, for example, on 

 the Hereford Map ; the great west-east river beyond the Atlas 

 Mountains resembles the traditional conception of the hydro- 

 graphy of North Africa, though contemporary names have 

 been inserted. Clearly the contemporary additions are set in a 

 much older framework. 



The narratives of contemporary travellers were extensively 

 used by the cartographer. The north-west coast of Africa 

 extends beyond Cape Bojador to a point north of the Rio 



