PAGE
[THE WORLD ACCORDING TO PTOLEMY]2
From Nordenskjöld's fac-simile atlas
[THE WORLD ACCORDING TO EDRISI. c. 1150]24
As reconstructed by M. Reinaud from the writtendescriptions of the Arabic geographer. This illustratesthe extremely unreal and untrue conception of the earthamong Moslem students, especially those who followed thetheories of Ptolomy—e.g., in the extension toAfrica eastward, so as practically or actually to joinChina, making the Indian Ocean an inland sea.
[THE MAPPE-MONDE OF ST. SEVER]48
(B. Mus., Map room, shelf 35 [5], sheet 6). Of uncertaindate, between c. 780-980 but probably not laterthan the 10th century. One of the earliest examples ofChristian map-making.
[THE ANGLO-SAXON MAP]54
(B. Mus., Cotton mss., Tib. B.V., fol. 59). This givesus the most interesting and accurate view of the worldthat we get in the pre-Crusading Christian science. Thesquare, but not conventional outline is detailed withconsiderable care and precision. The writing, thoughminute, is legible; but the Nile, which, like the RedSea in Africa, is coloured red, in contrast to theordinary grey of water in this example, is made towander about Africa from side to side, with occasionaldisappearances, in a thoroughly mythical fashion. Thismap, from a ms. of Priscian's Peviegesis, appearsto have been executed at the end of the 10th century; itis on vellum, highly finished, and has been engraved, inoutline, in Playfair's Atlas (Pl. I), and more fullyin the Penny Magazine (July 22, 1837). In the reignof Henry II., it appears to have belonged to Battle Abbey.
[THE TURIN MAP OF THE 11TH CENTURY]76
(B. Mus., Map room. From Ottino's reproduction).One of the oldest and simplest of Christian Mappe-Mondes,giving a special prominence to Paradise, (with the figuresof Adam, Eve, and the serpent), to the mountains andrivers of the world, and to the four winds of heaven. It isto be associated with the Spanish map of 1109, and theMappe-Monde of St. Sever.
[THE SPANISH-ARABIC MAP OF 1109]84
(B. Mus., Add. mss., 11695). The original, gorgeouslycoloured, represents the crudest of Christian and Moslemnotions of the world. Even more crude than in the Turinmap and the Mappe-Monde of St. Sever, both of which offersome resemblances to this. The earth is represented as ofquadrangular shape, surrounded by the ocean. At the E.is Paradise with the figures of the Temptation. A part ofthe S. is cut off by the Red Sea, which is straight (andcoloured red), just as the straight Mediterranean, with itsquadrangular islands, divides the N.W. quarter, or Europe,from the S.W. quarter, or Africa. The Ægean Sea joinsthe Mediterranean at a right angle, in the centre of themap. In the ocean, bordering the whole, are squareislands, e.g., Tile (Thule), Britania, Scocia,Fu(o)rtunarum insula. The Turin map occurs in anothercopy of the same work—A Commentary on the Apocalypse.
[THE PSALTER MAP OF THE 13TH CENTURY]92
(B. Mus., Add. mss., 28, 681). A good illustration ofthe circular type of mediæval map, which is sometimeslittle better than a panorama of legends and monsters.Christ at the top; the dragons crushed beneath him at thebottom; Jerusalem, the navel of the earth, in the middleas a sort of bull's-eye to a target, all show a "religious"geography. The line of queer figures, on the right side,figuring the S. coast of Africa, suggests a parallel with thestill more fanciful Mappe-Monde of Hereford. (For copysee Bevan and Phillott's edition of the Hereford map).
[THE S.W., OR AFRICAN SECTION OF THE HEREFORDMAP c. 1275-1300]106
(B. Mus., King's Lib., XXIII). The S. coast of Africa,as in the Psalter map, is fringed with monstrous tribes;monstrous animals fill up a good deal of the interior; halfof the wheel representing Jerusalem in the middle of theworld appears in the N.E. corner; and the designer's ideaof the Mediterranean and Atlantic islands is specially noteworthy.The Hereford map is a specimen of the thoroughlytraditional and unpractical school of mediæval geographerswho based their work on books, or fashionable collectionsof travellers' tales—such as Pliny, Solinus, or MartianusCapella—and who are to be distinguished from the scientificschool of the same period, whose best works were thePortolani, or coast-charts of the early 14th century.
[THE WORLD ACCORDING TO MARINO SANUTO. c. A.D. 1306]114
(B. Mus., King's Lib., 149 F. 2 p. 282). The shape ofAfrica in this map is supposed by some to be valuable in thehistory of geographical advance, as suggesting the possibilityof getting round from the Atlantic into the Indian Ocean.
[SKETCH MAP OF DULCERT'S PORTOLANO OF 1339]116
(From Nordenskjöld's fac-simile atlas). This illustratesthe accuracy of the 14th century coast-charts, especially inthe Mediterranean.
[THE LAURENTIAN PORTOLANO OF 1351]120
(From the Medicean Lib. at Florence; reproduced inB. Mus., Map room, shelf 158, 22, 23). This is the mostremarkable of all the Portolani of the 14th century, asgiving a view of the world, and especially Africa, which isfar nearer the actual truth than could be expected. Especiallyits outline of S. Africa and of the bend of the Guineacoast, is surprisingly near the truth, even as a guess, ina chart made one hundred and thirty-five years before theCape of Good Hope was first rounded.
[N.W. SECTION OF THE CATALAN MAP OF 1375-6]124
(B. Mus., Map room, 13, 14). This gives the BritishIslands, the W. coasts of Europe, N. Africa as far as CapeBoyador, and the Canaries and other islands in the Atlantic.The interior of Africa is filled with fantastic pictures ofnative tribes; the boat load of men off Cape Boyador in theextreme S.W. of the map probably represents the Catalanexplorers of the year 1346, whose voyage in search of the"River of Gold" this map commemorates.
[CHART OF THE MEDITERRANEAN SEA, BY BARENTSZOON]128
(Engraved in copper 1595. Almost an unaltered copy ofa Portolano from the 14th century. From Nordenskjöld'sfac-simile atlas). This illustrates the remarkablecorrectness in the drawing of the Mediterranean basinand the coasts of W. Europe, reached by the Italian andBalearic coast-charts, or Portolani, in the 14th century.
[THE BORGIAN MAP OF 1450]290
(B. Mus., Map room, shelf 2 [6], 13, 14; copy of 1797).This map was executed just before the fall of Constantinople(1453), and gives a view of the world as imaginedin the 15th century. It is very fantastic andunscientific, but remarkable among its kind for itscomparative freedom from ecclesiastical influence.
[WESTERN SECTION OF THE MAPPE-MONDE OF FRAMAURO, 1457-9]302
(Cf. reproduction in B. Mus., Add. mss., 11267, andphotographic copy in Map room). This map of Fra Mauroof Murano, (near Venice), is usually understood to be a sortof picture, not merely of the world as then known, but ofPrince Henry's discoveries in particular on the W. Africancoast. From this point of view it is perhaps disappointing;the inlet of the Rio d'Ouro(?), to the S. of the Sahara,is exaggerated beyond all recognition; at the S. Cape (ofGood Hope) a great island is depicted, separated from themainland by a narrow channel—possibly Madagascardisplaced.
[SKETCH-MAP OF FRA MAURO'S MAPPE-MONDE]304
As reduced and simplified in Lelewel's Atlas.The corners of the table are filled up with four smallcircles representing: (1) The Ptolemaic System in theSpheres. (2) The lunar influences over the tides. (3) Thecircles described in the terrestial globe. (4) A pictureof the expulsion from Eden, with the four sacred rivers.
[MAP OF 1492]322
(B. Mus., Add. mss. 15760). This gives a general viewof the Portuguese discoveries along the whole W. coast ofAfrica, and just beyond the Cape of Good Hope, whichwas rounded in 1486.

his volume aims at giving an account, based throughout upon original sources, of the progress of geographical knowledge and enterprise in Christendom throughout the Middle Ages, down to the middle or even the end of the fifteenth century, as well as a life of Prince Henry the Navigator, who brought this movement of European Expansion within sight of its greatest successes. That is, as explained in Chapter I., it has been attempted to treat Exploration as one continuous thread in the story of Christian Europe from the time of the conversion of the Empire; and to treat the life of Prince Henry as the turning-point, the central epoch in a development of many centuries: this life, accordingly, has been linked as closely as possible with what went before and prepared for it; one third of the text, at least, has been occupied with the history of the preparation of the earlier time, and the difference between our account of the eleventh-and fifteenth-century Discovery, for instance, will be found to be chiefly one of less and greater detail. This difference depends, of course, on the prominence in the later time of a figure of extraordinary interest and force, who is the true hero in the drama of the Geographical Conquest of the Outer World that starts from Western Christendom. The interest that centres round Henry is somewhat clouded by the dearth of complete knowledge of his life; but enough remains to make something of the picture of a hero, both of science and of action.

Our subject, then, has been strictly historical, but a history in which a certain life, a certain biographical centre, becomes more and more important, till from its completed achievement we get our best outlook upon the past progress of a thousand years, on this side, and upon the future progress of those generations which realised the next great victories of geographical advance.