The Fra Mauro Map: the World in 1450

The Fra Mauro Map represents the last word on medieval map making, the last great map made before the voyages of Columbus showed that there was much more to the world than the ancients understood.

Fra Mauro was an Italian monk who resided on the Venetian island of Murano. He based his map mainly on other maps collected in Venetian libraries, although he also had conversations with many experienced sailors. He was a man of the Renaissance in his intimate knowledge of the classics and his belief that modern knowledge surpassed them. As he wrote on the map:

I do not think it derogatory to Ptolemy if I do not follow his Cosmografia, because, to have observed his meridians or parallels or degrees, it would be necessary in respect to the setting out of the known parts of this circumference, to leave out many provinces not mentioned by Ptolemy. But principally in latitude, that is from south to north, he has much 'terra incognita', because in his time it was unknown.

I am especially struck by the impression Fra Mauro gives of Asia's vastness and great wealth; above is his depiction of China, the imperial city in the lower right. He knew something of Chinese seafaring:

The ships called junks (lit. "Zonchi") that navigate these seas carry four masts or more, some of which can be raised or lowered, and have 40 to 60 cabins for the merchants and only one tiller. They can navigate without a compass, because they have an astrologer, who stands on the side and, with an astrolabe in hand, gives orders to the navigator

Fra Mauro understood that Asia was much larger than Europe, and therefore that Jerusalem was not the center of the world in the literal sense. Above, Samarkand and the rest of central Asia.

Here is India, also studded with great cities, Delhi first among them. This shows his reliance on Muslim sources and the overland trade, since there were Hindu cities in south India just as large as Delhi. Portuguese sailors would come to know them once they began sailing the Indian Ocean.

Africa. Fra Mauro cited a source from India for his placement of the southern tip of Africa, which he called Cape Diab:

Around 1420 a ship, or junk, from India crossed the Sea of India towards the Island of Men and the Island of Women, off Cape Diab, between the Green Islands and the shadows. It sailed for 40 days in a south-westerly direction without ever finding anything other than wind and water. According to these people themselves, the ship went some 2,000 miles ahead until - once favourable conditions came to an end - it turned round and sailed back to Cape Diab in 70 days.

I find it rather wonderful that so much knowledge of distant places had been accumulated in Italy, even though it took years of journeying to reach China or India. Information about the world was building up quickly in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and so was curiosity about distant places.

The BBC has a huge zoomable copy of the map here.