54 MAPS AND THEIR MAKERS 



figure of 180°. It is difficult to see, therefore, if this map of 1457 

 was similar to that sent to Portugal, where its importance lay, 

 for this information was accessible to all inquirers. The interest 

 of the cartographer seems more probably to have lain in 

 Conti's description of the oriental spice islands and the possi- 

 bility of reaching them by circumnavigating Africa. His work 

 is clearly related, though not closely, to the great map of Far 

 Mauro, his contemporary.^ 



The world map of Fra Mauro, a monk of Murano, near 

 Venice, is often regarded as the culmination of medieval carto- 

 graphy, but in some respects it is transitional between medieval 

 and renaissance cartography. Fra Mauro appears to have had a 

 considerable reputation as a cartographer, and to have been at 

 work on a world map as early as 1447. Ten years later, he was 

 commissioned by the King of Portugal to construct another, and 

 for this purpose he was provided with charts showing the 

 latest discoveries of the Portuguese (according to an inscription 

 off the west coast of Africa). In this work he was assisted by the 

 chart maker, Andrea Bianco, the draughtsman of a world map 

 dated 1436, and a number of illuminators. The map for the 

 King, finished in April 1459, was sent to Portugal, but cannot 

 now be traced. Fra Mauro died shortly after, while working on 

 a copy destined for the Seignory of Venice and completed later 

 in 1459. This copy has survived and is now preserved in the 

 Marciana library at Venice. The map is circular, its diameter 

 approximately 6 feet 4 inches, and is drawn on parchment 

 mounted on wood. It is full of detail, carefully drawn and 

 coloured, and annotated with very many legends. Though the 

 coasts are drawn in a style recalling that of the portolan charts, 

 loxodromes and compass roses are absent, and the effect is 

 definitely that of a mappa mundi, not a nautical chart, especially 

 as it is oriented with the south at the head. 



The convention of placing the centre of the map at Jerusalem 

 has at last been abandoned: perhaps under the direct influence 

 of Ptolemy, or of travellers' reports on the great extent of the 



^For statements of the conflicting views of S. Crino, R. Biasutti and 

 A. Magnaghi, see Revista geographica italiana, 49, 1942, 35-54, where there 

 are also numerous references to the literature on the controversy. H. Winter 

 also pronounced against Crino's thesis ('Die angebliche Toscanelli-Karte' 

 Koloniale Rundschau, 33, 1942, 228-38.) 



