It seems not improbable that the delineation on Vesconte’s map may have a connection with this description; it has also very nearly the same forms of names. The regions far in the north and east on his map are pure fancy, and the “rifei montes” are still found there.
Eight other MSS. (in various libraries) of Sanudo’s work are known, accompanied by maps, and six of them have the circular mappamundi; but the reproductions differ considerably one from another, especially in the representation of the northern coast of Europe.[218] The mappamundi in the MS. in Queen Christina’s collection in the Vatican (Codex Reginensis, 548), and the exactly similar map in the MS. at Oxford, have a remarkably good delineation of the Scandinavian Peninsula (see map, [p. 224]), with the names “Suetia” [Svealand], “Gotia” [Götaland], and “Scania” on the east, “Noruegia” on the west, “Finlandia” and “Alandia” [Åland, or perhaps Hallandia ?] in the extreme north-east. On the continent is written “Kareli infideles,” “Estonia,” “Liuonia,” etc. In the Baltic are two islands, “Gotlandia” in the middle, and “Ossilia” [Ösel] farthest in. The shape of Jutland [with the names “Dacia” and “Jutia”], the direction of the coast of northern Europe and the Baltic, with Scandinavia parallel to it, remind one a good deal of Edrisi’s map, of the Cottoniana and also of Carignano’s map. Evidently there is here new information which Vesconte did not possess when he drew the map previously mentioned; the correct placing of the names in Sweden and Norway is especially striking. These names, as also “Jutia,” occur in Saxo in approximately the same forms (cf. also Historia Norwegiæ). Marino Sanudo, according to his own statement, had himself sailed from Venice to Flanders, and had also travelled in Holstein and Slavonia. He was thus able to collect geographical information, and, as suggested by Björnbo [1909, pp. 211, f.], may have received communications from North German priests whose picture of the North had been formed by the study of Adam of Bremen and Saxo; but there does not appear to me to be any necessity for such a hypothesis, he may just as well have received direct information from people who knew the localities, while doubtless the names are to a great extent literary. If we suppose that it was Pietro Vesconte who drew all the maps, he may have derived his information about the North through Sanudo himself; but in that case it would be strange that he did not use it for his first map. We must therefore suppose that it was after this that their real collaboration began.
Northern Europe in the mappamundi in the MS. of
Sanudo’s work at Oxford (Björnbo, 1910, p. 123)
But here we come upon another difficulty, and this is the third entirely different form of the delineation of the North that is found in the corresponding mappamundi in the MS. of Sanudo at Paris. There the Scandinavian Peninsula is divided in an unaccountable way into several islands, the largest of which bears the name “scania de regno dacie” or “scãdinaua.” To the north of it is a long island, “gotlandia,” which has been read by some “yrlandia” or “yslandia,” and made into Iceland [as in Thoroddsen, i., 1897, p. 84]. “Noruegia” is written outside the border of the map to the north of Jutland [called “dacia”], and the name “prouincia noruicie” is placed on the west coast of Jutland, which has been given a fantastic extension towards the north with many bays. An island in the ocean to the north of Russia [“rutenia”] is marked “kareli infideles.” The whole of this representation is in complete disagreement with the other Sanudo maps, and it is difficult to understand that Vesconte can have also drawn this one, although in other respects it may bear much resemblance to the rest from his hand. One might be inclined to think that some other man had tinkered at this part of the map, introducing ideas which he entirely misunderstood.
Northern Europe in the mappamundi in the Paris MS.
of Sanudo’s work (Björnbo, 1910, p. 123)
A remarkable thing about it is that it is, perhaps, the first that has a legend about the North. For on the large island in the Baltic (?) we read: “In hoc mari est maxima copia aletiorum” [in this sea is the greatest abundance of herrings ?]. In the opinion of Björnbo this may allude to the herring fishery in the Sound.[219]
The North on Dalorto’s map of 1325. The network of compass-lines is omitted
for the sake of clearness. Only a few of the names are given