CHAPTER IV 



FIFTEENTH-CENTURY WORLD MAPS: 

 FRA MAURO AND MARTIN BEHAIM 



Contemporary with the later Catalan maps are several 

 mainly of Italian origin which also preserve some medieval 

 features, but show very markedly the influence of Ptolemy's 

 'Geography', manuscripts of which were circulating in western 

 Europe at least as early as the opening decades of the fifteenth 

 century. 



An early, but not very successful, attempt to reconcile the 

 classical and medieval outlook is the world map drawn by the 

 Benedictine Andreas Walsperger at Constance in 1448. *Tn 

 this figure," he writes, "is contained a mappa mundi or 

 geometrical description of the world, made out of the Cosmo- 

 graphia of Ptolemy proportionately to the latitudes, longitudes 

 and the divisions by climates, and with the true and complete 

 chart for the navigation of the seas." He has not made, to say 

 the least, the best of his authorities, and the resulting map is 

 muddled and difficult to explain. There are one or two interest- 

 ing points; e.g. the use of red dots for Christian and black dots 

 for infidel cities; also the orientation, with the south at the 

 head. Though the east includes the terrestrial paradise, re- 

 presented by a great Gothic castle, there are some glimmerings 

 of recent knowledge. The Indian sea is not closed, but con- 

 nected by a channel with the ocean. The island 'Taperbana' is 

 inscribed 'the place of pepper', and an unnamed island off 

 the Arabian coast (perhaps Ormuz or Socotra) has the legend 

 'Here pepper is sold'. Such details point to an interest in the 

 spice trade before the Conti-Bracciolini report. The contrast 

 between this map and the elliptical world map of 1457, pre- 

 served in the National Library, Florence, is striking. The 

 latter, usually considered to be of Genoese origin, is very 

 carefully drawn, particularly the outline of the Mediterranean. 

 It has a number of neatly executed drawings, and legends in 



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