TOPOGRAPHICAL SURVEYS 103 



mountains generally are rendered realistically; Verona is 

 represented by a bird's-eye view, in some detail, the smaller 

 towns by a few buildings, drawn 'on their backs'. The part of 

 the topographical draughtsman in determining the conven- 

 tions of such maps was considerable and continued certainly 

 for two, perhaps for three, centuries. Such surveys were 

 becoming appreciated by administrators, and in 1460 the 

 Council of Ten of the Republic of Venice ordered all com- 

 manders of cities, lands, and fortresses to send maps of their 

 jurisdictions to Venice. Almagia suggests that this order was 

 responsible for a surviving map of Padua, 1465, and one of 

 Brescia, c. 1470. The former, perhaps by the painter Francesco 

 Squarcione, is more stylized than the Verona map; towns 

 are generally represented by single towers, and the canals, or 

 tagli, are included. The map of Brescia is notable for the 

 accurate and complete delineation of the relief and particularly 

 the hydrography; roads and bridges also are well done; but 

 again details in less accessible areas are sketchy. These are but 

 a few of the many MS. local surveys which must have existed 

 in fifteenth-century Italy, and undoubtedly provided material 

 for the engraved maps which became so numerous in the 

 following century. 



It is possible that the art of cadastral survey never died out 

 completely in Italy. At any rate the designs which the Roman 

 agrimensores employed to represent, for example, mountains, 

 seem to have persisted continuously, for similar forms are found 

 in the early Ptolemy manuscripts. Practical requirements at a 

 later date stimulated progress in the Netherlands where the 

 earliest document which may be called a map is a sketch of 

 part of the Oude Maas, dated 1357. In some cases these 'maps' 

 were more nearly eye-sketches than pieces of survey, and in 

 fact, before survey was established on a scientific basis, the 

 landscape painter — or topographical draughtsman — played an 

 important role in cartographic development. In the Nether- 

 lands the earliest 'maps' containing much detail were mostly 

 oblique views drawn by landscape painters from church 

 towers or other vantage points. Indeed in these early days it is 

 difficult to distinguish between maps and 'bird's-eye views'. 

 In charts of the coasts, this drawing of oblique views and 



