74 MAPS AND THEIR MAKERS 



meridian. On the modern maps there are no indications of 

 latitude and longitude, though the length of the longest day 

 is noted at intervals in the margin. As these figures are based 

 on latitude they afford some indication of position — but the 

 reluctance, or perhaps the inability, to show it more accurately 

 is curious: it is not until the Rome editions of 1507 and 1508 

 that this defect is remedied. In drawing the new maps Nicholaus 

 adopted a very conservative attitude ; for all practical purposes 

 he accepted the outlines of Ptolemy, modified in some details 

 by the later maps mentioned above, and attempted to fit the 

 new detail in this frame, with, as might be expected, very 

 unsatisfactory results. 



On the whole this edition can only have had a retrogressive 

 effect on the development of cartography. It seems, however, 

 to have met with a good reception in Germany, for within 

 four years a second edition appeared at Ulm (1486), with the 

 same maps and the text enlarged by a dissertation. In 1490, 

 a second edition of the Rome version of 1478 appeared, with 

 the twenty-seven maps printed from the same plates. There 

 was then an interval of seventeen years before another edition 

 was issued. This coincided with the great epoch of maritime 

 expansion, and naturally, until adequate details of the new 

 discoveries became available, there was little incentive to 

 embark on a new edition. 



The third Rome edition appeared in 1507, edited by 

 Marcus Beneventanus and Johannes Cotta. The twenty-seven 

 ancient maps are from the plates of the earlier editions, and to 

 these were added six new maps, engraved in a similar style. 

 Five of these had appeared in slightly different forms in other 

 editions, but the sixth was of greater interest. This was a map 

 of Central Europe (Polonie, Hungarie, Boemie . . .), by Cardinal 

 Nicholaus Cusanus. A manuscript copy is in the Laurenziana 

 codex, and it had apparently been intended to include it in 

 one of the earlier Rome editions ; a plate was engraved but not 

 used for this purpose, though the map was in circulation 

 separately about 1491. The other 'tabulae modernae' are 

 derived partly from the Ulm editions (northern Europe, France, 

 and the Holy Land — the first two on the trapezoidal projection) 

 and partly from Berlinghieri (Italy, a close copy, and Spain, on 



