Fra Mauro's maps, 1457.
TOMB OF PRINCE HENRY AT BATALHA.
[From Major's Prince Henry.]
Prince Henry dies, 1460.
In 1457, Prince Henry sent, by order of his nephew and sovereign, Alfonso V., the maps of his captains to Venice, to have them combined in a large mappemonde; and Fra Mauro was entrusted with the making of it, in which he was assisted by Andrea Bianco, a famous cartographer of the time. This great map came to Portugal the year before the Prince died, and it stands as his final record, left behind him at his death, November 13, 1460, to attest his constancy and leadership. The pecuniary sacrifices which he had so greatly incurred in his enterprises had fatally embarrassed his estate. His death was not as Columbus's was, an obscuration that no one noted; his life was prolonged in the school of seamanship which he had created.
STATUE OF PRINCE HENRY AT BELEM.
[From Major's Prince Henry.]
The Prince's enthusiasm in his belief that there was a great southern point of Africa had been imparted to all his followers. Fra Mauro gave it credence in his map by an indication that an Indian junk from the East had rounded the cape with the sun in 1420. In this Mauro map the easterly trend of the coast beyond Cape Verde is adequately shown, but it is made only as the northern shore of a deep gulf indenting the continent. The more southern parts are simply forced into a shape to suit and fill out the circular dimensions of the map.
Sierra Leone, Gold Coast.