The World Map, 1300-1492: The Persistence of Tradition and Transformation » (New Edition)

Evelyn Edson recently retired as professor of history at Piedmont Virginia Community College. She is the author of Mapping Time and Space: How Medieval Mapmakers Viewed Their World.

Beginning with a 1436 atlas of ten maps produced by Venetian Andrea Bianco, Evelyn Edson uses the maps of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth centuries to examine how new discoveries of traveling missionaries and merchants impacted the content and configuration of world maps. This engaging and informative study reveals how the ingenuity, creativity, and adaptability of mapmakers before the Renaissance helped pave the way for an age of discovery.

Preface     vii
Introduction: Andrea Bianco's Three Maps     1
The World View of the Mappamundi in the Thirteenth Century     11
Marine Charts and Sailing Directions     33
Sea Chart and Mappamundi in the Fourteenth Century     60
Merchants, Missionaries, and Travel Writers     90
The Recovery of Ptolemy's Geography     114
Fra Mauro: The Debate on the Map     141
The Persistence of Tradition in Fifteenth-Century World Maps     165
The Transformation of the World Map     205
Conclusion: The World Map Transformed     227
Notes     237
Bibliography     277
Index     293