Omons supposed also that in his time the terrestrial paradise was still existing in the east, with its tree of life, its four rivers, and its angel with a flaming sword. He appears to have confounded Hecla with the purgatory of St. Patrick, and he places the latter in Iceland, saying that it never ceases to burn. The volcanoes were only, according to him, the breathing places or mouths of the infernal regions. The latter he placed with other cosmographers in the centre of the earth.
Another author, Nicephorus Blemmyde, a monk who lived during the same century, composed three cosmographical works, among them the following: On the Heavens and the Earth, On the Sun and Moon, the Stars, and Times and Days. According to his system the earth is flat, and he adopts the Homeric theory of the ocean surrounding the world, and that of the seven climates.
Nicolas of Oresmus, a celebrated cosmographer of the fourteenth century, although his celebrity as a mathematician attracted the attention of King John of France, who made him tutor to his son Charles V., was not wiser than those we have enumerated above. He composed among other works a Treatise on the Sphere. He rejected the theory of an antichthonal continent as contrary to the faith. A map of the world, prepared by him about the year 1377, represents the earth as round, with one hemisphere only inhabited, the other, or lower one, being plunged in the water. He seems to have been led by various borrowed ideas, as, for instance, theological ones, such as the statement in the Psalms that God had founded the earth upon the waters, and Grecian ones borrowed from the school of Thales, and the theories of the Arabian geographers. In fact we have seen that Edrisi thought that half of the earth was in the water, and Aboulfeda thought the same. The earth was placed by Nicolas in the centre of the universe, which he represented by painting the sky blue, and dotting it over with stars in gold.
Leonardo Dati, who composed a geographical poem entitled Della Spera, during this century, advanced no further. A coloured planisphere showed the earth in the centre of the universe surrounded by the ocean, then the air, then the circles of the planets after the Ptolemaic system, and in another representation of the same kind he figures the infernal regions in the centre of the earth, and gives its diameter as seven thousand miles. He proves himself not to have known one half of the globe by his statement of the shape of the earth—that it is like a T inside an O. This is a comparison given in many maps of the world in the middle ages, the mean parallel being about the 36th degree of north latitude, that is to say at the Straits of Gibraltar; the Mediterranean is thus placed so as to divide the earth into two equal parts.
John Beauvau, Bishop of Angiers under Louis XL, expresses his ideas as follows:—
"The earth is situated and rests in the middle of the firmament, as the centre or point is in the middle of a circle. Of the whole earth mentioned above only one quarter is inhabited. The earth is divided into four parts, as an apple is divided through the centre by cutting it lengthways and across. If one part of such an apple is taken and peeled, and the peel is spread out over anything flat, such as the palm of the hand, then it resembles the habitable earth, one side of which is called the east, and the other the west."
The Arabians adopted not only the ideas of the ancients, but also the fundamental notions of the cosmographical system of the Greeks. Some of them, as Bakouy, regarded the earth as a flat surface, like a table, others as a ball, of which one half is cut off, others as a complete revolving ball, and others that it was hollow within. Others again went as far as to say that there were several suns and moons for the several parts of the earth.
In a map, preserved in the library at Cambridge, by Henry, Canon of St. Marie of Mayence, the form of the world is given after Herodotus. The four cardinal points are indicated, and the orientation is that of nearly all the cartographic monuments of the middle ages, namely, the east at the top of the map. The four cardinal points are four angels, one foot placed on the disc of the earth; the colours of their vestments are symbolical. The angel placed at the Boreal extremity of the earth, or to the north of the Scythians, points with his finger to people enclosed in the ramparts of Gog and Magog, gens immunda as the legend says. In his left hand he holds a die to indicate, no doubt, that there are shut up the Jews who cast lots for the clothes of Christ. His vestments are green, his mantle and his wings are red. The angel placed to the left of Paradise has a green mantle and wings, and red vestments. In his left hand he holds a kind of palm, and by the right he seems to mark the way to Paradise. The position of the other angels placed at the west of the world is different. They seem occupied in stopping the passage beyond the Columns (that is, the entrance to the Atlantic Ocean). All of them have golden aureolas. The surrounding ocean is painted of a clear green.
Another remarkable map of the world is that of Andrea Bianco. In it we see Eden at the top, which represents the east, and the four rivers are running out of it. Much of Europe is indicated, including Spain, Paris, Sweden, Norway, Ireland, which are named, England, Iceland, Spitzbergen, &c., which are not named. The portion round the North Pole to the left is indicated as "cold beneath the Pole star." In these maps the systematic theories of the ancient geographers seem mixed with the doctrines of the Fathers of the Church. They place generally in the Red Sea some mark denoting the passage of the Hebrews, the terrestrial paradise at the extreme east, and Jerusalem in the centre. The towns are figured often by edifices, as in the list of Theodosius, but without any regard to their respective positions. Each town is ordinarily represented by two towers, but the principal ones are distinguished by a little wall that appears between these two towers, on which are painted several windows, or else they may be known by the size of the edifices. St. James of Compostella in Gallicia and Rome are represented by edifices of considerable size, as are Nazareth, Troy, Antioch, Damascus, Babylon, and Nineveh.
