64 MAPS AND THEIR MAKERS 



As we have seen, Cresques had abandoned the circular form a 

 century earlier. When it became apparent that Jerusalem 

 could no longer be regarded literally as the centre of the 

 known world, the arguments for a circular frame lost much 

 of their force. Further, the popularity of Ptolemy's world map 

 also worked in this direction, apart from the fact that, without 

 considerable knowledge of mathematics, it was impossible to 

 fit meridians and parallels satisfactorily into a circle, that is, to 

 construct a precise projection. With this world map of Fra 

 Mauro, therefore, we leave the medieval convention which 

 had prevailed for so many centuries. The last important pre- 

 Columbian representation of the world was in fact a globe, the 

 earliest to have survived. 



Martin Behaim's globe 



The main features of interest in the Behaim globe are first 

 the fact that it is a globe and that the maker was therefore 

 obliged to consider directly the width of the ocean between 

 Europe and Asia; second, the strong probability that the 

 outlines adopted on the globe, with the exception of the 

 African coast, were taken from a printed map already fairly 

 widely circulated; third, the persistency with which these 

 outlines were adhered to by later cartographers and their 

 determined efforts to force the new discoveries into this 

 framework. The globe has also great importance in the perennial 

 controversy over the initiation of Columbus' great design and 

 the subsequent evolution of his ideas on the nature of his 

 discoveries, though a detailed discussion of these problems lies 

 outside the present study. 



The former fame of Martin Behaim as a skilled cosmo- 

 grapher has now faded. Ravenstein has shown that Behaim 

 possibly made a voyage to Guinea in 1484-5, but that he was 

 certainly not an explorer of the southern seas and a possible 

 rival of Columbus, and his cartographical attainments were 

 distinctly limited. AH the available evidence tends to show that 

 he was a successful man of business who made a certain position 

 for himself in Portugal, and who, like many others of his time, 

 was keenly interested in the new discoveries. 



In the year 1490 Martin Behaim returned to his native city 



