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Imago Mundi, Ltd.

A Forgotten Ptolemy: Harley Codex 3686 in the British Library
Author(s): Marica Milanesi
Source: Imago Mundi, Vol. 48 (1996), pp. 43-64
Published by: Imago Mundi, Ltd.

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A Forgotten Ptolemy: Harley Codex 3686 in the British

Library
MARICA MILANESI
ABSTRACT:The text of the British Library's manuscript Harley 3686 is an undated and anonymous Latin
version of Ptolemy's Geographiawith an innovative set of eighteen non-Ptolemaic maps of Europe, Asia and
Africa. Links with Andrea Bianco's nautical atlas (1436) suggest a Venetian provenance for the manuscript
and a date of between 1436 and 1450. Map outlines were derived from portolan charts but inland
topographical detail and toponymy appear to have come from the Ptolemaic text. The codex constitutes one
of the earliest examples of the synthesis of portolan chart, Ptolemaic map and medieval mappamundi that
characterised fifteenth-century cartography and the only example of such a synthesis on a regional scale.
Harley 3686 reveals some of the technical and methodological problems that the Geographiamust have
presented to the period's cartographers.
KEYWORDS:British Library Harley Codex 3686; Ptolemy's Geographia;portolan charts; nautical-regional
maps; synthetic mappaemundi; Venetian cartography, fifteenth century.

The great work of classification and description

performed by Joseph Fischer, S.J., has meant that
fifteenth-century Latin codices of the Geographiaof
Claudius Ptolemy have come to be identified almost
exclusively with those produced in the scribal
workshops at Florence, especially after 1450, and
with the printed editions of 1475 onwards.'
However, not all the Ptolemaic manuscripts with
maps were classified by Fischer. For example, the
anonymous sixteenth-century codex of 27 plates
without text (now Biblioteca Vallicelliana, Rome,
MS R. 1 16) escaped his attention. In addition,
although historians of cartography recognise that
the translation of the Ptolemaic text into Latin
changed the direction of cartography, they have as
a rule ignored codices lacking maps.
Comprehensive surveys like Fischer's facilitate
the studies of those who come after but they also
seriously influence them. Fischer's (few) mistakes
have become dogma. Above all, whatever he
neglected has passed into oblivion. Thus, mapless
Ptolemaic codices have been abandoned to historians of mathematics and astronomy, for whom the

Geographiais a minor work in comparison with the

Almagest and the Analemmata. Moreover, by considering the Ptolemaic manuscripts only as collections of geographical maps, we have limited our
studies almost entirely to codices endowed with a
luxurious cartographic apparatus, those originally
of princely or wealthy ownership. More humble
codices, with or without maps, belonging to
students of geography and even perhaps to cartographers, which bear their readers' annotationssigns of their attention and traces of their interests-have been overlooked. Yet in late medieval
and early Renaissance Europe only the few could
have afforded codices with maps. Paolo dal Pozzo
Toscanelli, for instance, never possessed a mappamundi: he borrowed one from a friend in 1459 and
kept it until his death in 1484.2
From the great codices studied by Fischer we can
derive above all an aesthetic pleasure similar to that
experienced by their first purchasers. Moreover, we
can learn something about the tastes of the mighty
and the criteria they used in choosing vehicles of
ostentation and symbols of power.3 Such magnifi

44

cent codices were not for study: rarely does a

correction spoil the ordered lines and nobody has
dared to put maniculae or references in the margin
or to add glosses, write forewords or make indexes.
Exceptions to this rule-for
example, British
Library MS Harley 7182-are few. Nor could any
reader have produced a Ptolemaic projection from
their geometrical drawings, for in the majority of
codices these had not been constructed according to
the instructions but were copied and modified until
they only appeared to correspond to the text, itself
confused and badly translated into Latin by a
humanist who knew a little Greek but no mathematics.4
The luxurious and costly Florentine codices were
largely 'mass produced' and, apart from prototypes,
are repetitive and full of uncorrected errors in both
text and diagrams. Their maps were copied from
other maps of old design, occasionally with additions. Most of the Florentine illuminated codices
thus contain little of interest for historians of
cartography and geography. It is no accident that
these codices have been studied most thoroughly
by palaeographers, humanistic philologists and art
historians.5
If we are looking for innovation, we should
study codices that belonged to scholars or cartographers. From a study of such working codices, the
historian of science Dana B. Durand made an
important contribution to the history of geography
and fifteenth-century cartography. He showed that
the prototypes of the Florentine codices down to
Martello in the early 1490s (apart from Lapaccini
and Buoninsegni) incorporate innovations originating in Germanic lands.6 Some of the small mapless
codices, too, may contain hitherto unknown
attempts at cartographic innovation.
No less interesting is the variety of provenance of
these codices: some were copied not at Florence but
at other Italian cultural centres like Ferrara,
Bologna and Venice; others are from north of the
Alps. I have seen only a modest sample of these
working codices, and since the entry 'Ptolemaeus'
in the Catalogus translationum has not yet been
published, we do not even know their total
number. However, Douglas W. Marshall's incomplete list is enough to indicate that the number is
very high.7 The few studies undertaken so far
suggest that both the mapless and the nonFlorentine codices are a potential mine of new
information on the history of fifteenth-century
geography and cartography. One of these humbler

codices, a 'forgotten Ptolemy', illustrated with maps

which do not correspond to those in any other
known Geographia,is the subject of this paper.8
British Library Harley MS 3686
The manuscript in question, now in the Department of Manuscripts of the British Library (London) at the press mark Harley 3686, is listed in the
CatalogusManuscriptorumHarleianorum, volume 3,
as 'Claud[ii] Ptolomaei Geographia, 8 libris. A
Jacopo Anglo traducta, et Alex[andr]o V Pon[tifici]
Max[imo] dedicata: cum tabulis geographicis.
Codex chartaceus. XV [cent.]'.9 At folio 2 of the
Harleian codex, in a sixteenth-century hand, there
is an illegible date; at folio 11, in the same hand, a
note refers to the volume as belonging to one
Bagleius. This could be William Bagley, a Protestant
cleric who had lived in Essex and at Cambridge and
died in 1540, thus implying that the codex reached
England in the first half of the sixteenth century.'0
From 1715 it was in the collection of Robert Harley,
first Earl of Oxford (died 1724). In 1753 it was
passed on to the British Museum (now British
Library).
The codex contains the text of the Geographiaof
Claudius Ptolemy in Latin, with six explanatory
diagrams and 18 regional maps. Blank spaces have
been left on some of the pages containing the
description of the Greek peninsula and were
presumably meant for other maps. The text follows
the translation made by Jacopo d'Angelo da
Scarperia (Cosmographia, c.1409-1410),
and
includes the dedicatory letter to Pope Alexander
V. Only the list of 'Provinciae seu satrapiae notae' at
the end of Book VII is missing. Comparison with
fifteen other fifteenth-century Greek and Latin
codices, which include the oldest extant dated
Latin codices, suggests that the text closest to
Harley MS 3686 is a codex in the Vatican (Vat.
Lat. 2974) that was made in Florence in 1409. In
the Harleian codex, only the geographical order of
the provinces in Book m, with the description of
Greece following that of Italy instead of Sarmatia,
corresponds neither to the original text of the
Geographianor to any other codex known to me
(nautical atlases included). The order of the other
books is unchanged. Many place names have been
Italianised and modernised, and some modern
names have been added.
The six explanatory geometrical diagrams correspond to those in the oldest dated codices that have
come down to us." The first projection is drawn on

Table 1: The Maps in Harley MS 3686

Map title

Folio

Ireland
Tille, Scotland and England
Iberian peninsula
France
Germany (full page)
Italian peninsula, with islands and part of Balkans
Corsica
Sardinia
Sicily
Greece
Eubea
Crete
North and west coasts of the Black Sea
Region east of the Caspian Seaa
Central and east Asia between Sogdiimontesand terraincognita
(two full pages)a
Strait of Gibraltarand north-west Africab
Baltic and Scandinavia, with part of Germany
From Poland to Volga River

f.L12
f.L13
fl5
f.20
f.23v
ff.28v-29
f.31v
f.32v
f33v
f34v

f.36
f.36v
f.41v
f.98
ff.98Y-99
f99V

f.100
ff.i00Y-i0i

Size (mm)
154
220
200
205
282
282
45
70
122
245
67
65
200
approx. 282
approx. 282

X 125
X 190
X 210
X 250
X 212
X 242
x 45
X 62
X 80
X 212
X 72
X 75
X 212
X 200
X 415

approx. 282 X 210

282 X 212
282 X 424

aPage reduced by restoration.

bWhole page but cut on the left.

an erroneous rectangle (ab < 2ac), the second is

correct (ab = 2ac). In the Harleian codex the
diagram relating to the 'Circularis spherae cum
habitabili terrae descripcio' (Book VII) is missing,
which is considered normal in fifteenth-century
codices and in their Greek prototypes. However, the
British Library's MS Burney 111, a Greek codex
with 66 maps of the B recension, contains a
reasonable representation of this third Ptolemaic
projection (f. 104v); the Bologna printed edition
(1477) also attempted to reproduce it. The Harleian
codex often contains marginal notations indicating
the appropriate clima for localities listed in the text
(for example, in folio 62, '14. clima' is added near
'Cimmerium promontorium'). Other annotations
and references in the margin of the text, in the
copyist's hand, are numerous, but only a few are
comprehensible. Evidently the copyist compared
his original source with another Ptolemaic manuscript, probably also in Latin since no Greek
references occur in the text, and has frequently
corrected the coordinates. He has also compared
the work with Pliny, whose NaturalisHistoriahe has
quoted on folios 29v, 35v and 47.12 On the map of
Germany (f.23v), we find the bisurge river, called
Ausurgisby Ptolemy, which probably corresponds to
Visurgimontesin Pliny (Nat. Hist. IV 100).
The Maps in Harley MS 3686
The British Library codex contains 18 nauticalstyle maps in various formats with modern and
Ptolemaic chorographic elements. Thirteen maps

are inserted in the text, according to the model of

the Greek B recension of Ptolemy's Geographia
(Table 1). The map of the Black Sea immediately
precedes the description in the text of European
Sarmatia. The five maps at the end of the volume
follow no recognisable order, probably because the
modern binder did not know how they should be
collated. Eastern Europe from the Baltic to the
Black Sea is the most represented area. The central
and eastern regions of Africa are missing, as are
those of southern and south-east Asia. We do not
know whether these maps were lost or never
drawn.
Overall, a recognisable picture of the fifteenthcentury inhabitable world is presented, but the
maps do not join up to form a single, if incomplete,
world map. However, the maps of the British Isles,
France, Spain, the Mediterranean, the Black Sea
and Africa can be combined, even though-as is
usual in portolan charts-the Black Sea map is on a
different scale (Fig. 1). The maps belong to the socalled 'transitional' type, in which Ptolemaic toponymy is mixed with modern names, and the
western parts of the ecumene are represented
according to the current nautical cartography,
while the northern and eastern parts have Ptolemaic, schematic or even imaginary shapes.'3
The world picture in the Harleian codex is
delimited in the northern and eastern regions by a
wavy line, a hypothetical boundary which gives a
circular or oval form to the known lands-and to
those unknown but mentioned by Ptolemy. An

45

,1~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~*

1'

he

46

~~~~~~~4

Fig. 1. Area covered by the regional maps in Ptolemy's Geographia(British Library, Harley MS 3686). (Top) The maps of
the British Isles, France, Spain, the Mediterranean, the Black Sea and Africa combined. (Centre) The maps of the Baltic,
Poland, Russia, the Danube, the Black Sea, and western Turkey combined. (Bottom) Asia east of the Caspian Sea and
central and east Asia between the Sogdui montesand terra incognita.The scale bars on the maps of Greece and the Black Sea
have different values.

Al

~ ~

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~~zi

Fig. 2.

*I
Jr~~~4Waire.

The map of the Iberian peninsula, folio 15 from Harley MS 3686 (Ptolemy's Geographia),has traced coasts and a
freehand interior. (Courtesy of the British Library.)

ocean beyond the confines of the known world is

indicated north of 'terra incognita' in Scandinavia
(f.100) and north of 'terra incognita de sina intra
imaum montem' in Asia (ff.98v-99). Elsewhere,
margins are torn and maps may be missing. Thus,
we do not know if the Indian Ocean was intended
to be open and the whole inhabited world insular,
as in most fourteenth- and fifteenth-century world
maps, or if the unknown cartographer had followed
Ptolemy's outline for the southern parts of the
world, as on the Fillastre-Pyrrus de Noha map of
1414.14

All the maps are executed by the same handthat which copied the written text-and are in a
consistent style. Their outlines were partly drawn
free-hand and partly traced, as is clear from the

verso. On the maps which show Ireland (f. 12), the

Iberian peninsula (f.15) (Fig. 2), France (f.20), Italy,
the Balkans and Greece (ff.28v-29,

34V), the north

and west coast of the Black Sea (f.41v), the eastern

regions of the Caspian (f.98), and Africa (f.99V), the
indentation of the stylus used in tracing the
drawing on to the page is clearly visible.'5 In
contrast, the maps of 'Tille' (Thule), Scotland and
England (f.13), Germany (f.23v), Corsica (f.31v),
Sardinia (f.32v), Sicily (f.33V), Eubea (f.36), Crete

(f.36v), together with those showing central and

east Asia (ff.98v-99), the Baltic and Scandinavia
(f.100), Poland and Russia (ff.100v-101), were all
drawn free-hand. The geographical features in both
series of maps and the diagrams were drawn freehand.

47

The scale of all the tracedmaps is approximately

the same, except for the northand west coastof the
Black Sea (f.41v) which is on a slightly smaller
scale. The general scale is seen on the map of
Greece (f.34V) where there is a scale bar, 120 mm

long, dividedin 10 equal units. For the Black Sea

the 120 mm scale bar has 12 partitions.'6No other
scales are indicated. On the free-hand maps the
scales differ from place to place. The same
territoriesare represented on different maps in
differentproportionsand, occasionally,with different outlines. All maps lack a grid, wind roses,
names of coastallocalities,scale (except as above),
and decorativeelements. In other respects,all the
graphicalconventionsof nauticalcartographywere
observed.'7

Fifteenth-centuryItaliannauticalchartsseem to
have provided the main source for the maps of
Ireland(f.12), the Iberianpeninsula (f.15), France
(f.20), and the Balkan peninsula with Greece
(f.34V). The inland detail on these maps is quite

different from that of the 'tabulae novae' of the

FlorentinePtolemaiccodices.It looks more like that
of Genoese portolan charts or of the maps in
Andrea Bianco's atlas (1436).18 However, the

Harleianmaps contain considerablygreater detail

than the Genoeseor the Biancocharts,especiallyin
the case of the maps of the Iberianpeninsula(f.15),
where many place-names have Portuguese spelling, and of France(f.20). Anotherunusual feature
of the Harleianmapsis the amount of detailfor the
Balkan peninsula (f.34V), where Bojana is both

shown and named (bojaneinstead of the usual

Lodrin), as is the Vardar River (veria).'9 The red

crossof SaintGeorgemarkedon the islandof Chios

also associatesHarleyMS 3686 with some of the
Italian-stylenauticalatlasesof the beginningof the
fifteenthcentury.20
The Harleian map of Italy (ff.28v~-29) also has a

48

distinctlynauticalaspect. Although the geography

is poor, the map contains some unexpected items.
The coursesof the Arno and Tiberrivers,which rise
in the casentinomo(ns),echo faintlyfeatureson the
map of Italy added to CristoforoBuondelmonti's
LiberInsularum(NationalLibraryin Berlin, Hamilton codex 108, first half of the fifteenth century)
and those shown on the Vatican's anonymous
BorgianaV world map (attributedto Fra Mauro,
c.1450).2' The Casentinomountains do not appear
on any other map of this periodknown to me. The
hydrography of northern Italy recalls that of
Ptolemy,but the majorlacuson the Harleianmap

Fig. 3. Harley MS 3686: detail from folio 100' showing,

mistakenly,the insulastamariain the lowerDanubeas the

easternmost of the three islands. (Courtesy of the British
Library.)

can be attributed neither to a nautical nor to a

Ptolemaic source. It could be interpreted as misreading of one of the fifteenth-century modern
maps of Italy, on which the Navighi (canals) of
Milan together with the rivers Adda, Po and Ticino
form an 'island' with Milan on its northern shore. A
late example of this configuration can be seen on
the modem map of Italy in the Geographiaexecuted
in Florence in 1469 (Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana,
MS Vat. Lat. 5699).

The free-hand map of the Baltic and Scandinavia

(f.100) reveals only indirect links with the prototype established in 1325-1330 by Angelino Dalorto.
The Harleian map shows some similarities with the
prdesentation on contemporary nautical maps
such as Bartolomeo Pareto's (1455), and with the
Catalan mappamundi (c.1450) now in the Este
collection of Modena. No connection with Claudius
Clausson Swart's (Claudius Clavus) map of Scandinavia (1427) or any of its derivatives is apparent.
The copyist has made some corrections to place
names and has altered the locations of the lakes by
reference to Bianco's atlas. The erroneous positioning of the name pumerensisin Scandinavia (f.100
and ff.100v)-eal) may perhaps reflect the fact that
Erik of Pomerania was sovereign of Sweden,
Norway and Denmark from 1412 to 1439.
The coastal delineation of Germany and the
relaletion
ons of the other regions of eastern
central Europe, together with the course of the
Danube (ff.23v, 100, 100v-101 ), have an outline
similar to, but not identical with, that of the Bianco
map, on which boundaries are not marked. The
insula sta maria formed by the Danube in the lowest
of its course
part
(f.100vn-dy)
might be a copyist's
error since, according to early charts, Santa Maria

Fig. 4. The map of Tille [Thulel, Scotland and England

reflects the combination of sources of the maps in Harley
MS 3686. Coastlines derive from portolan charts but the
north-eastward deviation of Scotland points to a Ptolemaic
influence. Part of folio 13. (Courtesy of the British
Library.)

was the westernmost, not the easternmost, of the

three 'islands' of the Danube (Santa Maria, Buda,
Sirmio) (Fig. 3). On various nautical maps, how-

ever, including folio 9 of Bianco's atlas, the name of

the island Sirmio is abbreviated and can be read
hastily as 'st.m.ia' instead of as 'sr.mia'.
The copyist responsible for the Harleian MS 3686
tried to identify the ancient names with the modern
in Mediterranean and western Europe. He sometimes gave Ptolemaic names to places known to
him but not to Ptolemy, for instance, terra incognita
de sarmatia asiatica north of the Baltic (f. 100).
Elsewhere he introduced the modern equivalent
instead of the Ptolemaic name, which is thus
reduced to a historical element (for example, on
15, shown in Figure 2, Lusitania nunc Portugallu
f.L
and on f23V, Germanianunc Alamagna dicitur). The
maps also reveal an attempt to reconcile Ptolemaic
hydrography and orography with that of contemporary regional cartography. Gaps in geographical
knowledge were filled by guesswork; thus almost
all seas, rivers, mountains and countries were given
a modern name and some sort of outline-in most
cases hypothetical. An exception is the Danubian
region between Germany and Italy (ff.28v-29),
which is Ptolemaic in both names and outline,
although neither the river's course nor its source
(lacus danubii) is Ptolemaic. The easternmost Danu-

Fig. 5. Harley MS 3686, folios 100v and 101, showing the area from Poland to the Volga river, with European Sarmatia
and a small tract of Asiatic Sarmatia enclosed within the western loop of the rahy (Volga). (Courtesy of the British Library.)

49

(Thule), located near the Scottish coast in accordance with the usage introduced by DalortoDulcert cartography, thus became the largest of
the 30 Ptolemaic Orkney islands. The island is
furnished with a text which adds another Ptolemaic
element to the map (the number of the Orkney
Islands) and gives modem information on the local
climate. To the best of my knowledge, such a text is
found elsewhere only in the Bianco atlas (1436).22
In the Harleian codex only European Sarmatia,
together with a small tract of Asiatic Sarmatia
enclosed within the western loop of the rahy

bian regions, too, like the Balkans and the Black

Sea, are substantially modern.
In areas described by Ptolemy but unfamiliar to
the makers of the nautical charts-in Europe,
regions from Scotland to Sarmatia (Russia) and,
above all, in the interior of Asia and of AfricaPtolemy's geography prevails. And it is in these
regions that the Harleian cartographer's original
contribution is most obvious. The coastline of the
British Isles (f.13) is nautical, but Scotland shows a
perceptible north-eastward deviation of undoubtedly Ptolemaic origin (Fig. 4). The island of tille

,rs"
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50

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arleyMS 366, foio 4v

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(Volga) (ff.100v-101), is shown; the western

Caspian regions, the Caucasus and the course of
the Volga itself are not represented (Fig. 5).
However, the presence of the loop of the Volga at
the same latitude as the Don (both on f. 101)
indicates that the map of Asiatic Sarmatia was
based on Ptolemy. Folio 101, however, contains the
non-Ptolemaic names citrican in sarmatia asiatica
(Astrakhan), saray fi. (Saray river) and saray zucco
(Saraicik). The well-known Tartar cities of the
lower Volga are-most unusually-located on the
course of the Sal' and of the western Manyc,
northwest of the Caucasus, nearer to the Don than
to the Volga.
In contrast with this mix of Ptolemaic and
modern features, the representation of the territories between the Baltic and the Black seas in the
Harleian codex (ff.41v, 100, 100v-101) is nearly all
modern (Figs. 5 and 6). The Meotid Marsh has been
sufficiently reduced to leave space for the territories
east and north of Germany. These lands were
poorly known both to Ptolemy and to fifteenthcentury Italians. The Tanay (Don) is labelled as
terminusasie de europein both its Ptolemaic and its
modern form (ff.100v-101). The region west of the
river bears the Ptolemaic name of sarmathia europe
but is subdivided into the modern prussia, litogna
(Lithuania) and russia. Opposite each other, lanbrechcivitaspolana and guistula civitasrossia indicate
the modern political boundary (not marked)
between the Grand Principate of Muscovy and the
Kingdom of Poland. In accordance with traditional
nautical toponymy, sarmathia europe is enclosed to
the north and the east by the great arc formed by
the rivers tanay (Don), which debouches into the
Black Sea, and nu (Neva), which flows into the
Baltic. Neither river, however, has its source in a
lake but emanates from a group of mountains
which at the western end carries the modern name
of brancie while the eastern end retains the
Ptolemaic/classical riphey (Riphey in the text).23
Evidently the Harleian cartographer's river nu was
intended to coincide also with Ptolemy's Chersinus,
a river described as flowing into the Sarmatic Ocean
at 60?N. North of these mountains and rivers is only
'terra incognita', the words located where the
nautical maps usually placed the cities of Russia
and the Upper Volga.
To understand the Harleian cartographer's representation of the territories north of the Black Sea
(ff.41v, 100v-101) requires accepting a complex and
sometimes contradictory balance between the

Ptolemaic maps on the one hand and the charts

on the other. Ptolemy's Poritus and Licus (Donetz)
rivers are given the modern names of alano and
cumano,and his Boristhenes (Dnepr), usually called
Lussonon the charts and lozo on Bianco's map, here
bears the name eltyc. Ptolemaic Tyras (Dnestr), on
the charts called Turlo (tarlo on Bianco's map),
becomes lussonfluvius nunc turla, thereby acquiring
the name that the charts attribute to the Dnepr. On
f.41v, the Dnepr originates in mountains bearing
the name carmatus (Ptolemy's Carpatus), and the
Dnestr emanates from the westernmost sarmatici
montes, as in Ptolemy. On ff.100v-101, however,
both the Dnepr and the Dnestr are shown flowing
from a single group of mountains called carmatus
whereas the sarmaticimontesgive rise to the Ragnes
(the lerassus of Ptolemy, the Rixa of Bianco, and
today the Arges), an affluent of the Danube on the
boundary between the vilachia and the territory of
the septemcastra nunc veginel (Siebenburgen, Transylvania). The Harleian cartographer thus was
identifying the sarmatici montes with the Carpathians.24 Further west, the other great left-bank
tributary of the Danube, the Tibisco, bears the
modern name of racus and is shown flowing from
mountains with the modern name of libulo instead
of from the Ptolemaic Carpatus. Thus Ragnes and
racus mark, correctly in Ptolemaic terms, the eastern and western boundaries of Dacia. At the same
time they identify a number of modern regions. The
Harleian cartographer, accustomed to drawing
mountains as zones rather than ribbons of upland,
has broken the long Ptolemaic chains into a series
of mountainous massifs and has moved them
eastward in order to make them coincide with his
reshaped territories north and west of the Black
Sea, whose outlines are based on portolan charts.
For the territories east of the Caspian Sea (ff.98,
98v-99),

the

cartographer

made

no attempt

to

follow modern cartography and adhered mainly to

Ptolemy; the toponymy is derived directly from his
manuscript text and the spelling is the same as in
the manuscript, albeit with some Italianisation:
genitives, for instance, are not usually recognised as
such, and the names transferred to the map are
incorrectly left in the genitive case.25 The Syr Dana
has both its modern and ancient names: hostia
norganzer aut laxartes (f.98) and laxarti (ff.98v-99)
(Figs. 7 and 8). The spelling norganzer is in the
Venetian style.26 All the regions south of the
Caspian Sea are Ptolemaic. On the other hand,
the rivers, the delta of the norganzeraut laxartesand

51

Fig. 7.

52

Harley MS 3686, folio 98, with the map of the region east of the Caspian Sea. (Courtesy of the British Library.)

the islands in the Caspian have no equivalent in

any known ancient or modern map.
For the map on folio 98 of the Harleian codex,
the cartographer has used the non-Ptolemaic term
caspey in the locale of the Ptolemaic monti Aspisii

(Fig. 7). These mountains are continued across the

north-eastern extremity of Asia onto the map on
the next page (ff.98v-99) (Fig. 8). Ptolemaic
nomenclature reappears only south and east of
the gap in the range guarded by the turris lapidea.

Fig. 8.

Harley MS 3686, folios 98' and 99, with the map of central and east Asia between the Sogdii montes and terra
incognita.(Courtesy of the British Library.)

The general delineation of rivers and mountains on

the second map differs in part from Ptolemy who
has one, not three, Sogdian marshes (sogdianorum
palus) and no river emodis (in Ptolemy, as in all the
Greek and Roman tradition, the Emodi are mountains) or casios (monti Casii in Ptolemy) and, above
all, no caspeymountains. The last must have been
taken from a modern source although I know of no
any other map of classical or nautical origin on
which the caspeymountains are so extensive.27
The Harleian codex has only one map of Africa
(f.99V) (Fig. 9). Here, even more than in Europe,

ancient and modern cartography was painstakingly

interlocked into a new, conjectural representation
tingitana28 and
of the territory. Between Mauritania
Mauritania Cesarensis, Getulia and inner Libya,
which are unnamed, the borders of the region are
those of Ptolemy. The mountains, too, have
Ptolemaic names but their positions have been
modified to accommodate the new coastline and
the consolidated outline of the Atlas chain, which
has three Ptolemaic names (sagapola, athalans,
temandrus). Among the inland waters, the river
maluo and the nigricespalus have Ptolemaic names
and locations. Some unnamed rivers can be
identified as Ptolemy's Nigir, Salatus and Thulais;

others are Ptolemaic in name (ballonius,masotiliand

stachir) but not in location. Yet others, nameless,
correspond to nothing in Ptolemy or on portolan
charts. The Nigir and the nigrices palus might be
associated with the western Nile system of medieval
cartography.
The west coast of Africa is represented as far as
Cape Bojador. The Canaries Islands have been
sketched on the outer margin of the map, and
Lanzarote has been given its usual Genoese cross,
but the group has no name.29 The stippling on the
lower left side of the map indicates, I think, not the
Sahara desert but unknown territory where geographical outlines are hypothetical-such as the
rivers which rise in the Ptolemaic mountains and
thence flow westward or eastward. The torn edge of
the page means we cannot tell whether the
cartographer was aware of any Atlantic islands
besides the Canaries or whether he had any
particular ideas about the south-west coast of
Africa.

The Originsof HarleyMS 3686

The family likeness of both the text and the
geometrical diagrams to the early Florentine editions of the Geographiasuggest that an Italian codex

53

Fig. 9. Harley MS 3686, folio 99", with the Strait of

Gibraltarand north-western Africa. (Courtesy of the
BritishLibrary.)
from the first half of the fifteenth century was used
in the preparation of Harley MS 3686. Such a
hypothesis does not run counter to the evidence of
the watermark (documented at Florence 14241426, Palermo 1425, Innsbruck 1425, Pisa 14271429) which belongs to a type found between
c.1370 and c.1490 throughout Europe and in Italy,
especially northern Italy. The writer's consistent use
of the vertical line in the capital C and of the uncial
A, together with the Gothic style of the letters,
agrees with the Italianisms of spelling and language.30 The maps themselves, with their nautical
basis and their language, also suggest an Italian
context. The codex has been written and drawn in

54

Italy.
The date of the codex and its maps can only be
surmised but I would suggest it was made before
the middle of the fifteenth century. The maps
contain no hint of the Atlantic discoveries or of any
new knowledge of northern and eastern Europe, as
can be found on the maps of Claudius Clausson
Swart and Nicolaus Cusanus and in Enea Silvio
Piccolomini's written work.3' Yet, as is clear from
the analysis of the maps, the cartographer had
numerous and varied sources at his disposal: at least
two different Ptolemaic codices, a text of Pliny, a

map of the Dalorto-Dulcert type, Italian portolan

charts or atlases (one very probably drawn by
Andrea Bianco) and a quantity of non-cartographical information about Asia and eastern Europe.
Such a wealth of source material could only have
been available in a major centre for the collection
and elaboration of geographical and cartographic
material, such as the Papal court, Florence, Venice,
Genoa and Naples, or, to a lesser extent, Ferrara.32
The author of the Harleian codex was not totally
ignorant of Latin but he wrote it badly with many
mistakes. Often he failed to understand it, and he
vernacularised it continually. In short, he used the
language of the Italian portolan chartmakers. He
wrote with a reasonably fluent hand but his
transcription of the Ptolemaic text is one of the
worst extant. He had, especially at the beginning of
his work, particular difficulty in spelling words of
Greek origin, which were evidently unfamiliar and
not yet well understood.33 At the same time, he
was familiar with map drawing. His hand is not that
of a painter or illuminator nor is it that of an
amateur-at least, not if we compare his work with
the clumsy examples of the unknown authors of
the Codex Tellerianus-Remensis (Bibliotheque
Nationale, MS Lat. 31230) and the Cardinal
Bessarione (Marciana, MS gr. 388).
The numerous cave and corrigatur and the
references in the margin are not sufficient for us
to identify the Harleian copyist's nationality or his
personal interests. Since the first and seventh books
of the Geographialack marginal notes, the geometrical-mathematical and cosmographical aspects of
the text may have held no interest for him. On the
other hand, he was interested in, and familiar with,
problems of scale reduction and with the armillary
sphere. A lengthy note on folio 87v, after the
indication of the relationship between the central
parallel and the meridian in the first plate of Europe
(Bk. VII: 'Exposicio omnium summarum quibus
continetur in Europa tabula decem provincie
quatuor et triginta'), reveals his considerable
experience as a geographer and probably as a
nautical or chorographical cartographer.34
That the Harleian author's knowledge of the
current astronomical and cosmographical literature
was much superior to his competence in Latin or
Greek35is revealed by a clue that has hitherto been
ignored in the study of fifteenth-century Ptolemaic
manuscripts: the Latin spelling of the word 'parallel'. The Harleian copyist regularly used the spelling
'paralellus', instead of 'parallelus' (Appendix). This

was no error: 'paralellus' had an equal legitimacy

and a longer tradition than the more familiar form:
this spelling had been introduced by John of
Holywood in his De Sphaera mundi (thirteenth
century). But the Vatican Library's Greek manuscript (Urb. gr. 82), the original for the fifteenthcentury Ptolemaic tradition, contains only the
likewise, Jacopo d'AnGreek spelling 'rrotpcAX-qXoa;
gelo used the spelling 'parallelus' in his translation,
either because he was following Pliny's usage
(Naturalis Historia, Book VI) or because he did not
know or did not wish to take into account the fact
that for two centuries previously cosmographers
had been using a different form, that of 'paralellus'.36 So most of the Latin codices derived from
d'Angelo's work, especially the Florentine and
other Italian ones, translate this word faithfully as
'parallelus'.
Thus the non-humanistic provenance of Harley
MS 3686 is evident both in its extremely bad Latin
and in the use of the spelling 'paralellus'. Characteristics of text and writing indicate an Italian
author of the first half of the fifteenth century. A
plausible date for the Harleian manuscript would be
before 1450 but after 1436, the year Bianco
produced his atlas. Which of the Italian centres of
geographical and cartographic production could
have been the unknown map-maker's home?
The Ptolemaic Tradition in Florence
The language and glosses of the Harleian text
together with the maps point to a cultural context
that was still strongly allied to the medieval
scientific tradition, where the main interest was
cartographical and the techniques those of nautical
cartography. None of these criteria applies to
Florence.
The geographical interests of the first generation
of Florentine humanists (churchmen and notaries,
above all), were not linked to problems of
cartographical representation but centred on those
of a general nature: the inhabitability of the various
parts of the earth, the existence of the Antipodes
and the spreading of the Christian faith among the
distant peoples. Succeeding generations exhibited a
more substantial interest in other aspects of
Ptolemy's work. They focused on the identification
of place names and the reconstruction of the
ancient world and its transformation into their
modern world (if they were historians and men of
letters), or on the correct determination of astronomical coordinates of places for diagnostic and

therapeutic ends (if they were physicians like Paolo

Toscanelli).37 Up to the end of the fifteenth century,
however, nobody in Florence-not even Toscanelli-seemed
interested either in constructing
better Ptolemaic regional maps or in producing
modern maps not from Ptolemy's data but according to Ptolemaic (that is, mathematical and astronomical) criteria.
However, the possibility of constructing a Ptolemaic-type cartography had fascinated Germanic
mathematicians from the first half of the fifteenth
century onwards. Indeed, the only effective realisations of Ptolemaic projects were achieved by
northerners who were working in Italy on a
temporary or long-term basis or who were in
touch with Italian scholars. Among such northerners were Claudius Clausson Swart, Magister
Reinhardus, Nicolaus Cusanus and, above all,
Nicolaus Germanus. Humanism had arrived much
later in the Germanic territories than in Italy and
the science inherited from the thirteenth century
maintained its hegemony within the universities for
much longer. On the other hand, the modern
tradition of nautical-regional cartography, with its
inland detail and portolan chart outlines, which
allowed most Italian cartographers to ignore Ptolemaic (that is, astronomical) cartography until the
following century, did not exist in the Germanic
lands. Unsurprisingly, the authors of the first
modern Ptolemaic maps of Italy were of Germanic
origin, namely Nicolaus Germanus in Florence and
the anonymous author of the Bologna edition of
Ptolemy's Geographia(1477).3 Unlike the German
mathematicians, native Florentine cartographers
used nautical-regional maps to update their Ptolemaic codices with new regional maps. After
Lapaccini and Buoninsegni's translations of Ptolemaic place names into Latin and their redrawing of
the maps (1420-1430), no further developments
were initiated in Florence until the translation into
Italian of place names on the maps accompanying
Francesco Berlinghieri's Le septe giornate de la
Geographia (1482).39 This was a linguistic rather
than a cartographical change, however, and the
maps themeselves were straight copies of the
original. The (modest) cartographical innovations
of Pietro del Massaio are chronologically later than
those of Nicolaus Germanus and it is therefore
impossible to call them original.40
In Genoa, home of innovative fourteenth-century cartographers like Giovanni da Carignano, the
fifteenth century appears to have seen no geogra-

55

phical production departing from the nautical

model. No study and elaboration of Ptolemy's
Geographia appears to have taken place, and it
would be difficult to postulate that any Genoese
could have undertaken the complex synthesis of
the different traditions found in Harley MS 3686.
The Aragonese in Naples were the most scientific
among Italian cartographers of the fifteenth century, but they were interested in the use of the
compass, in a new astronomical calculation of
latitude, and in the dimensions of the terrestrial
sphere, all of which took a form quite different
from the Ptolemaic.4'

A VenetianProvenance?

56

I would suggest that Harley MS 3686 belonged to

the geographical culture of Venice rather to than
that of Florence or elsewhere in Italy. From the end
of the fourteenth century, Venice had a flourishing
cartographic school characterised by a strongly
innovative attitude both to toponymy and to the
structure of atlases and nautical charts.42 In 1436
the Venetian Andrea Bianco produced the first
known example of a combination of nautical charts
and Ptolemaic maps in the same volume when he
inserted a well-drawn Ptolemaic world map and a
synthetic world map of the fourteenth-century
type, together with the customary charts, into his
nautical atlas.43 But Harley MS 3686 is something
different. If we consider the individual maps in
Harley MS 3686 as a single image (as in Fig. 1),
albeit an incomplete one, the result is probably the
second-oldest extant fifteenth-century transitional
or synthetic mappamundi; the first being the
Fillastre-de Noha world map of 1414.
The synthetic type of map had its origins in
Venice with Pietro Vesconte's elaboration (c.1320)
of Fra Paolino's mappamundi, in which the
Romano-Christian cartographical tradition was
combined with the practice of portolan chartmaking. Vesconte's method of synthesising different cartographic traditions continued to be accepted
at Venice as a satisfactory way of representing the
world until the end of the fifteenth century; it was
used by Albertin de Virga (f7.1390-1428/29), for
instance. But in c.1459 Fra Mauro stated on his
mappamundi-the last great original effort to place
all the known world within the framework of a
non-astronomical and non-mathematical cartography-that although Ptolemy provided the measure
against which map-making should be judged, it was
impossible to integrate Ptolemy's world-picture

with the modern. He also pointed out that Ptolemy

himself had recognised that in time better information would become available and should be used.44
Like Fra Mauro, and before he produced his own
mappamundi, the author of Harley MS 3686 tried
to redraft essentially portolanic outlines to accord
with the dictates of Ptolemy and, unlike anybody
else, he did it on a regional, almost Ptolemaic, scale.
The Harleian's Author's Relationship with
Andrea Bianco
The author of the Harleian codex would have
been, I suggest, a Venetian accustomed to drawing
geographical maps, able to read Latin but not to
write it correctly. He knew at least the fundamentals of cosmography and had access to a vast
quantity of geographical information, including
Pliny's text and numerous modern sources, both
cartographical and written. He possessed a text of
the Geographia,though not necessarily any of the
maps, since all the Ptolemaic elements in his maps
are derived directly from the text they illustrate and
not from an external source. He could have
achieved his codex without ever having seen the
maps of Lapaccini and Buoninsegni. He could
equally well, and more simply, have been looking
at the small Ptolemaic (260 X 380 mm) world map,
drawn on the first of Ptolemy's projections, which
illustrates Bianco's nautical atlas of 1436.
The name of Andrea Bianco recurs so frequently
in connection with the Harleian codex that an
examination of the possible relationship between
the unknown author of Harley MS 3686 and the
famous Venetian chartmaker is necessary. The
Harleian manuscript has, as we have seen, several
features in common with the atlas signed by Bianco
in 1436: language, geographical names on the maps
given in the genitive case instead of in the
nominative, the spelling 'paralellus', various notes
on the clima in the margins of the Ptolemaic text,
place-names in heavily Venetianised spellings, the
same outlines for the Atlantic islands and many
other lands, and the legend describing the island of
tille.45 It is noteworthy, too, that in the Harleian
codex the areas of cartographical innovation (Scotland) and those best represented (northern and
eastern Europe, from the Baltic to the Black Sea),
border, at least in part, areas visited by Bianco: the
Black Sea, the by then greatly reduced Byzantine
territory, the British Isles and the North Sea, and
North Africa.46 Although Andrea Bianco was not
the only Venetian to frequent these areas, only he

is known to have drawn a chart in London (1448)

and his maps were always strongly innovative.
Other features on the maps in Harley MS 3686
also need to be taken into account. Ptolemaic
regional boundaries (between taraconensis and
hispania belgica nunc castella (f.15), for example),
are marked on all maps. Traditionally this practice
has been attributed to Nicolaus Germanus. However, boundaries on Germanus' maps are marked
with red lines, either continuous or broken;
boundaries on the Harleian maps are, on the
contrary, marked by red or red and black points,
and, since they have been drawn on a nautical
rather than on a Ptolemaic basis, they follow a quite
different course. Only on one of the Harleian maps,
that of the Iberian Peninsula (Fig. 2), are boundaries shown differently; so far from the Ptolemaic
world in time and location were the kingdoms of
Navarre and Granada that their boundaries are
indicated with continuous black lines according to
the modern nautical usage.47
However, certain definitive differences between
the Harleian codex and Bianco's atlas should be
noted. The graphics and the scale of reduction are
quite different. Bianco makes no mention of caspey
mountains in Asia. And, most important, the hand
responsible for the codex is not Bianco's, although
similar to it. The two cartographical achievements
clearly reflect the same linguistic and cultural
environment: that of the Venetian cartographers
and their clients.48 It is not possible to say whether
the author of the Harleian codex was a member of
Bianco's circle (or workshop) or whether he merely
knew the 1436 atlas well. We cannot know if the
codex was created for a particular owner (the
copyist himself?), or if it was intended to be the
prototype of a serial production. We can posit,
however, that Harley MS 3686 dates from just after
1436.
Evidence for Bianco's interest in Ptolemaic
geography is found only in his early extant
cartographical work, the Marciana nautical atlas
(1436), composed before he embarked on the
galleys of the Republic bound for the Sea of Azov
(1437). Bianco seems to have dedicated himself to
'synthetic' cartography only at the end of the
1450s, in collaboration with Fra Mauro. If Harley
MS 3686 really does come from Bianco's circle, it
documents the continuity of interest in Ptolemaic
geography which has always been assumed but of
which little is known in its practical applications.
As an attempt to reconcile modern with Ptole-

maic cartography, which failed or at any rate was

too broadly hypothetical in an age when cartography was not so freely conjectural as it was to be in
the following century, Harley MS 3686 would
explain the reasons for Fra Mauro's well-known
self-justification:
I do not think that I detractfrom Ptolemyif I do not
follow his cosmography,because if I had chosen to
respect his meridians and parallels and degrees it
would have been necessaryin the demonstrationof
the areas now known in this latitude to omit many
provinceswhich Ptolemydoes not mention, especially
in the latitudebetween the south wind and the north
wind which he calls'terraincognita',becausein his day
it was not known; . . . and although at various times

some have navigated in the southern and northern

parts,none the less they have not had time to measure
or even to considerthis distance,theirvoyaginghaving
been casualand not aimedat this navigationalpurpose.
ThereforeI leave to EverlastingGodthe measurement
of his works.49
It seems to me that Harley MS 3686 demonstrates
that other attempts had been made to follow
Ptolemy more closely than Fra Mauro had managed
to do and that they had not succeeded.

Further Thoughts
Whatever its provenance, the Harleian codex
remains a unique testimony to relationships among
the various cartographical and geographical traditions of the fifteenth century. It reveals the methods
of someone outside the humanistic circles who
approached the Geographia of Ptolemy with the
practical objective of using it for a better reconstruction of the world-picture on the regional scale.
We can conclude by conjecturing some of the
problems the author of the Harleian codex may
have faced.
The first problem, having procured the text,
must have been to understand its language.
Ptolemy's Geographia contains Latinised Greek
words that would have been unfamiliar to anyone
without knowledge of Greek. For instance, the
difference between 'thorographia/toragraphia' and
'corographia' (f.2) could not have been appreciated.
In the process of copying Harley MS 3686,
however, the errors in the transcription of the
word 'corographia' become rarer and finally disappear. As the copyist proceeded, he learned the
meaning (or at least the spelling) of the words he
was transcribing. This would suggest that the
copyist was a scholar who took an interest in the
subject and was possibly copying it for himself.
The geometrical part of Ptolemy's treatise must

57

have presented problems. In Books I and VII the

procedures for drawing the world map are set out.
In Jacopo d'Angelo's translation these instructions
are almost incomprehensible, and the related
drawings are incorrect. The author of Harley MS
3686 seems to have ignored all the difficulties,
transcribing without comment or variant the text
and the drawings as he found them in the codex he
was copying. Significantly, the only instance of the
spelling 'parallelus' in Harley MS 3686 comes in an
explanatory geometrical drawing (f.2v), which the
copyist failed to correct to conform with his usual
spelling. It would look as though from the outset
our author passed quickly over the chapters on the
ecumene, preferring to devote himself to what he
found more intelligible, namely the chorographic,
or regional, chapters and their accompanying maps.
These posed no particular geometrical problems,
the only obstacle being the concept of central
parallel and meridian, which the scholar was able
to overcome, as he himself noted at the end of the
Ptolemaic text, 'experientia circuli ... subtiliter
investigando' [with subtle investigation, experimenting on the circle]. From this we may infer
that others in his circle had already tackled the
question but with less success. Inexpert at creating
perspective, our scholar did know how to use the
models of the cosmos (spheraartificialis)to interpret
the Ptolemaic text correctly.
So far as place names and associated coordinates
are concerned, our author evidently knew that he
was faced with both textual and interpretative
problems. He seems to have had access to a second
codex, since he was aware of discrepancies between
its text and his own. Having no reason to believe
more in one codex than in the other, however, and
lacking a third with which to compare both, he was
unable to correct the spelling of names and the
coordinates. Instead he limited himself to adding a
warning (with the formulae cave or corrigatur)that
the text was doubtful. On the maps he retained the
spelling found in his own text, even when it was
unusual. On his own initiative, he noted the clima
in which certain places were situated (for example,
'Costantinopolis 13. clima', f.40). Occasionally he
included other marginal notes, like 'Parisius' beside
'Lucotecia' (f.21v) to link an ancient name with a
modern, and 'delphicum appollo' beside 'deli insula
civitas' in the text about Greece (f.36v), in an
unconvincing flaunting of his classical learning.
Notes referring to Pliny's work are found in Hellas
58

and Numidia

(ff.35V, 47); and a new detail on the

Lucanians has been added to the text of Italy

('Locanis numquam peste aut termotu passa sunt
secundum Plinium in libro I cap.lo 98', f.29v).
Our unknown author paid careful attention to
the problem of intelligibility, a major concern in the
fifteenth century. As new texts from the classical
period became available, the humanists grew aware
of the degree of change in the world and its places
and peoples. Biondo Flavio's Italia illustrata(c.1450)
opened with a comment on the way names and
places had changed from classical times. And on
behalf of those ignorant of Latin and interested in
the modern world rather than the classics, Fra
Mauro made the same point, indulging in a little
irony over the fact that not even lettered men
succeeded in agreeing among themselves on the
identification of ancient sites.50
Likewise, the author of Harley MS 3686 tried
wherever he could to translate the ancient world of
Ptolemy into his own. He added to text and maps
the modern equivalents he knew ('celtogalatie situs
que Galia dicitur aut francie', f.20; 'Asya minor que
nunc Turchia dicitur', f.34"; 'hostia norganzer aut
laxartes', f.98, etc.). He went further, however, and
gave Ptolemaic names to places on the modern map
(the rivers bisurgeand albis, f.23V; Sarmathiaeurope,
f.101, etc.), and, occasionally, a modern name to a
Ptolemaic place (caspey mountains, ff.98"-99).
Above all, on the maps of the Black Sea and the
Caspian and of Africa he blended the familiar
portolan chart coastal outline with a new Ptolemaic
inland geography. Indeed, on the maps of the Black
Sea (ff.41v, 100v-101), he offered different solutions for the same problem, the source of the
Dnester, perhaps reflecting hypotheses formulated
at different stages of his work. Countries like Spain
and France presented no problem in reconciling
ancient and modern, since the modern maps were
sufficiently detailed for the interior. For regions
mapped in less detail by modern cartographers,
Ptolemy was used to offer a plausible and authoritative alternative.
A particular problem is posed by the order of the
Harleian text and its maps. The Ptolemaic order of
depiction, especially in Europe, did not correspond
to modern experience. By placing Greece and its
islands, instead of Sarmatia, after Italy, the author
of Harley MS 3686 must have wanted to bring the
Ptolemaic text closer to the practical experience of
his contemporaries who were accustomed, unlike
Ptolemy, to consider the Mediterranean as a
separate geographical area. Africa, however, con-

tinued to be kept separate from the Mediterranean

(Book IV).
We know from Fra Mauro that in Venice as
elsewhere the cartographers' attention was centred
on Ptolemy's Geographia and that they had doubts
about both their own and Ptolemy's methods and
material. Harley MS 3686 shows us how, at Venice,
the problems raised by the Geographia were faced
but not solved prior to Fra Mauro's time. It
confirms, too, that the Venetians never relinquished the custom of blending the most up-todate information with traditional map-making
processes, as Pietro Vesconte had been doing earlier
on. Harley MS 3686 documents a forgotten phase
in the transition from fourteenth and earlyfifteenth-century synthetic production to a different
type of synthesis in the mid-fifteenth century (like
Fra Mauro's, for example) in which account had to
be taken of Ptolemy's geographical descriptions.
The Harleian codex is older than Fra Mauro's world
map. Moreover, it is the only surviving witness of
how a synthesis of this kind was attempted on a
regional scale.
Manuscript submitted December 1994. Revised text received
October1995.
NOTESAND REFERENCES
N.B. The errors in the Latin text of B.L. Harley MS 3686
are so numerous that I have not indicated them. I have
also refrained from intervening with punctuation and
capitalisation, confining myself to a palaeographic transcription which leaves its characteristics in evidence. The
quotations from other texts conform with modern practice
in regard to punctuation and capitalisation.
1. Joseph Fischer, Claudii Ptolemaei Geographiae Codex
Urbinas Graecus 82 (Codices Vaticani Selecti, vol. 19;
Leyden, Brill; Leipzig, Harassowitz, 1932, 3 vols.)
2. Sebastiano Gentile, Firenze e la scopertadell'America.
Umanesimoegeografianel '400fiorentino,Catalogo dell'esposizione, Firenze, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana (19921993) (Florence, Olschki, 1992), 132-34; Sebastiano
Gentile, 'Toscanelli, Traversari, Niccoli e la geografia', in
Atti del ConvegnoFirenzee il MondoNuovo. Geografiae scoperte
fra XV e XVIsecolo,Firenze, 6-8 ottobre 1992, published in
RivistaGeograficaItaliana 100 (1993), 113-31. On the cost
of illustrated Florentine geographical codices-between 50
and 100 florins-see Gentile, Firenze, 200-1, 209. A
'mappamondo' could be a large map of the world or a
codex of Ptolemy's Geographiawith maps.
3. Marica Milanesi, 'Testi geografici antichi in manoscritti miniati del XV secolo', in Relazioni di viaggio e
conoscenzadel mondotra MedioEvo e Rinascimento,Atti del V
Convegno internazionale dell'Associazione per il Medioevo e l'Umanesimo Latini, Genoa 1991, published in
Columbeis5 (Genoa, D.Ar.Fi.Cl.Et., 1993), 341-62.
4. This was Regiomontano's opinion, which was well
known from his catalogue of scientific works, Haec opera
fient in oppido Nuremberga Germaniae ductu Ioannis de
Monteregio (Nuremberg, 1474). Roberto Weiss believed

that Jacopo d'Angelo was not a good translator ('Jacopo

d'Angelo da Scarperia [ca. 1360-1410/11]', in Medioevoe
Rinascimento. Studi in onore di Bruno Nardi [Florence,
Sansoni, 1955, 2 vols.], 2: 801-27; reprinted in Roberto
Weiss, Studies in Medieval and Humanist Greek [Padua,
Antenore, 1977], 254-77). Weiss considers d'Angelo to
have been faithful to the text but inaccurate and describes
his Latin style as 'simply atrocious' (p. 821). A similar
opinion is more blandly expressed by Johannes Werner in
In eundem primum librum GeographiaeCl. Ptolomaei argumenta, printed with the new translation of Book I of
Ptolemy's Geographia(Nuremberg, Ioannes Stuchs, 1514).
Jacopo d'Angelo da Scarperia had not received a
scientific education but, like many Florentine humanists
of his generation, he had studied jurisprudence at Bologna
University. On scientific studies in the fifteenth-century
universities, and on the difference between the juridical
and the medico-scientific curricula, see Dana B. Durand,
The Vienna-KlosterneuburgMap Corpus of the Fifteenth
Century.A Study in the Transitionfrom Medieval to Modern
Science (Leyden, Brill, 1952), 32-93; Paul L. Rose, The
Italian Renaissanceof Mathematics.Studieson Humanistsand
Mathematiciansfrom Petrarch to Galileo (Geneva, Droz,
1975), 46-105; Charles B. Schmitt, 'La cultura scientifica
in Italia nel Quattrocento: problemi d'interpretazione',
Studifilosofici4 (1980), 55-70.
Vladimiro Valerio has observed that the geometrical
drawings in the codices of Nicolaus Germanus' Geographia
were wrong, but the geographical plates have no mistakes,
which confirmed that 'the text and the figures [were not
always] checked by the mathematicians and, in any case,
not with the same care devoted to the plates' (Vladimiro
Valerio, 'Sui planisferi tolemaici. Alcune questioni interpretative e prospettiche', in Esplorazioni geografiche e
immaginedel mondo nei secoliXV e XVI, Atti del Convegno,
Messina 14-15 ottobre 1993 [Messina, Grafo Editor,
1994], 63-82, quotation 75).
5. The most recent important studies on the Florentine
codices of the Geographiainclude those by Albinia de la
Mare, 'New research on humanistic scribes in Florence', in
Miniatura fiorentina del Rinascimento1440-1525, un primo
censimento,ed. Annarosa Garzelli (Florence, 1985), 393600; Sebastiano Gentile, 'Emanuele Crisolora e la "Geographia" di Tolomeo', in Dottibizantinie librigrecinell'Italia
del secoloXV, Atti del convegno internazionale, Trento 2223 ottobre 1990, ed. M. Cortesi and E. V. Maltese (Naples,
D'Auria, 1992), 291-308; Gentile, Firenze (see note 2); S.
Gentile, 'L'ambiente umanistico fiorentino e lo studio
della geografia nel secolo XV', in L. Formisano et al.,
Amerigo Vespucci(Florence, Giunti, 1992), 12-45; Gentile,
'Toscanelli, Traversari, Niccoli' (see note 2); S. Gentile,
'Giorgio Gemisto Pletone e la sua influenza sull'Umanesimo fiorentino', in Firenzee il Conciliodel 1439, Convegno
di Studi, Florence 29 novembre - 2 dicembre 1989, ed.
Paolo Viti (Florence, Olschki, 1994), 813-32. These
scholars have established the documentary foundation
for all future study of the subject.
6. Durand, Vienna-KlosterneuburgMap Corpus (see note
4). Innovations continue to be considered generally of
Italian origin, as asserted by Roberto Almagia ('II primato
di Firenze negli studi geografici durante i secoli XV e XVI',
Atti della SocietaItaliana per il progressodelle Scienze,Firenze
28 (1929); published separately, Pavia, Tip. Fusi, 1929;
reprinted Florence, Societa di Studi Geografici, 1963).
Such an interpretation is based on an erroneous dating (de
la Mare, 'New research' [see note 5], 505, 567), and on
many prejudices (Marica Milanesi, 'Presentazione della
sezione "La cultura geografica e cartografica fiorentina del

59

60

Quattrocento"', in Atti del ConvegnoFirenzee il MondoNuovo

(see note 2), 15-32.
7. Catalogustranslationumet commentariorum:
Medievaland
RenaissanceLatin Translationsand Commentaries,ed. F. E.
Cranz, P. 0. Kristeller and V. Brown (Washington D.C.
1960-); Douglas W. Marshall, 'A list of manuscript
editions of Ptolemy's Geography', Bulletin of the Geography
and Maps Division, Special LibrariesAssociation87 (1982):
17-38.
8. Forgotten in the sense of unstudied, though not
unknown to librarians. The secretary of the Hakluyt
Society in a review of the principal maps of the British
Museum, 1914, observed that the way in which Scotland
was drawn suggested a Scottish draughtsman, and that
Galway Bay resembled that in the Venetian portolan of
1489, also in the (then) British Museum (J. A. J. de
Villiers, 'Famous maps in the British Museum', Geographical Journal (Aug. 1914), 168-88. Tony Campbell, Indexesto
Materialof CartographicInterestin the Departmentof MSS and
to MS CartographicItems Elsewhere in the British Library
(London, British Library, 1992), lists it as 'ante 1450' and
unstudied.
9. The codex measures 282 X 212 mm and is composed
of folios 1-100 (paper) and 101 (parchment), numbered
in red ink at top right in the copyist's hand, with modern
numbering in pencil on the pages restored in 1882. No
blank sheets. 'Monts' watermarks similar to Briquet 11696
(C. M. Briquet, Les filigranes. Dictionnaire historique des
marques du papier (Paris and elsewhere, 1907, vol. 3).
'Cross n. 907, no place, no date, eye-copy from H.3686', in
Edward Heawood, Watermarks,mainly of the 17th and 18th
Centuries,Monumenta chartae papyraceae historiam illustrantia, 1 (Hilversum, Netherlands, The Paper Publication
Society, 1950).
All the pages in Harley MS 3686 are protected by
reinforcement at the binding, which is modern. Text and
maps in the same hand, probably from northern Italy, in
Gothic bookhand. Written full page (text) or in two
columns (lists of coordinates). In the margin, the copyist
has made brief annotations, frequent corrections (cave,
corrigatur)and references (place-names) and has added
the clima of each province. Titles of chapters are in red
with some initials in red and blue, though most of the
spaces for initials remain blank. The plates and the maps
inserted in the text are unframed. Waterbodies are in pale
green; islands and the names of regions are in red;
mountains are shown as continuous expanses of upland
and coloured light brown; coasts in black are highlighted
in yellow; rocks are rendered with black dots; boundaries
between Ptolemaic provinces are delineated with red dots,
sometimes highlighted in yellow; those separating modern
territories (in the Iberian peninsula) are marked with
continuous black lines. Small pen drawings represent the
columns of Hercules and the Turrislapidea.
10. IndexBiographicumNotorumHominum,part C, vol. 10;
John Venn and J. A. Venn, Alumni cantabrigienses(Cambridge, At the University Press, 1922), part 1 (to 1751), see
Bagley, William. The Venns list another William Bagley,
from Warwickshire, admitted to Cambridge from Eton in
1530. The handwriting of the owner's note is appropriate
to the period and the environment in which both William
Bagleys lived. See also P. J. Croft, AutographPoetryin the
English Language (London, Cassell, 1973, 2 vols.).
11. Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana (hereafter B.A.V.),
Vat. Lat. 2974 (1409), B.A.V. Ott. Lat. 1771 (1411), Laur.
XXX.5 (1426). These are all Florentine codices without a
map and, therefore, they were not classified by Fischer.
No systematic examination of the various types of

explanatory geometrical drawings in 15th-century Greek

and Latin Ptolemaic codices has been made, though such
analyses would provide a useful key for reconstruction of
their stemma (like that which exists for the Greek manuscripts). All we can say here is that the later Florentine
codices contain fewer geometrical drawings than the
Greek and the older Latin codices which generally contain
eight or nine drawings.
12. The quotation on folio 29v is inserted into the text
and could have come from the manuscript from which
Harley MS 3686 was copied, but the other two are in the
margin in the same hand as the text and the maps.
13. David Woodward has given the term 'transitional
maps' to world maps like the one under discussion, in
which several cultural and technical experiences come
together. I would rather define them as 'synthetic maps'.
The term transition implies the existence of a unidirectional flow from one condition to another (for instance,
from ancient to modern), and thus a progression or
regression which is not recognisable in the history of
ancient cartography. See David Woodward, 'Medieval
mappaemundi', in TheHistoryof Cartography.I. Cartography
in Prehistoric,Ancientand MedievalEuropeand the Mediterranean, ed. J. B. Harley and D. Woodward (Chicago,
University of Chicago Press, 1987), 286-370, esp. 314;
Marica Milanesi, 'La cartografia italiana nel Medio Evo e
nel Rinascimento', in La Cartografia italiana. Cicle de
conferenciessobre Histbria de la Cartografia (Barcelona,
Institut Cartografic de Catalunya, 1993), 15-80, esp. 21.
14. The map by Cardinal Guillaume Fillastre, from
Nancy (France), now in the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Archivio di San Pietro H.31, is the first known world
map to show a mixture of Ptolemy and Catalan-style
portolan charts. Fillastre was one of the earliest scholars,
together with his friend Pierre d'Ailly, to check Ptolemy's
geography against that in other classical texts, e.g.,
Pomponius Mela and Pliny. Pyrrus de Noha, who signed
the map and by whose name it is usually known today,
was only the scribe. The map accompanies Fillastre's
commentary of Pomponius Mela.
15. The method of transfer seems to conform to the
description given a century later in Breve compendiode la
spheray de la arte de nauegar con nuevosinstrumentosy reglas
exemplificandocon muy subtiles demonstraciones:compuesto
por Martin Cortes natural de Burjalaroz en el reyno de
Aragon y de presente vezino de la ciudad de Cadiz:
dirigido al invictissimo Monarcha Carlos quinto Rey de las
Hespanas etc. Senor Nuestro (Seville, Anton Alvarez,
1551), Chapter 2.
According to Cortes the lines of direction were drawn
with ruler and compass on a sheet of parchment (or, here,
paper). The coastal outline was traced from a pre-existing
portolan chart on to transparent wax paper. The wax
paper was then attached to the parchment, and the lines
were retraced using a thin but not sharply pointed stylus
in such a way as to leave the indentation of the stylus on
the surface of the parchment without damaging it. Finally
the indentation was filled in with ink. Next the names
were written; first the most important ones in colour, and
then the secondary ones in black. Thereafter cities, ships,
flags and animals were drawn; regions and other notable
things were indicated, and all were beautified with colour.
Finally the scale and the determination of the degrees
were added.
On the use of wax paper for copying drawings see also
Vladimiro Valerio, Societa Uomini e Istituzioni Cartografiche
nel Mezzogiorno d'Italia (Florence, Istituto Geografico
Militare, 1993), 82, n. 50, where reference is made to

the treatise on painting by Cennino Cennini. For other

systems of copying see Tony Campbell, 'Portolan charts
from the late XIIIth century to 1500', in Harley and
Woodward, The Historyof Cartography(note 13), 391; and
Piero Falchetta, 'Marinai, mercanti, cartografi, pittori.
Ricerche sulla cartografia nautica a Venezia (sec. XIVXV)', Ateneo Veneto. Rivista di scienze, lettere ed arti 182
(1995).
16. The Atlantic and Mediterranean countries seem to
have been really drawn to the same scale. This would
indicate a cartographical context in which the 1403
correction of Francesco Beccari had been accepted. See
Campbell, 'Portolan charts' (note 15), 427.
17. See Campbell, 'Portolan charts' (note 15), and Carte
da navegar.Portolanie carte nautichedel Museo Correr13181732, Catalogo dell'esposizione, Venice, Museo Correr,
1990, ed. Susanna Biadene (Venice, Marsilio, 1990), note
9.
18. Now in Venice, Marciana Library,MS It. Z 76 (4783).
A photographic edition of the atlas has recently been
published: Atlante Nautico di Andrea Bianco, with an
introduction by Piero Falchetta (Venice, Arsenale, 1993).
19. The Balkans were at this time little known to the
Venetians: Alain Ducellier, 'La penisola balcanica vista
dall'osservatorio veneziano nei sec. XIV e XV', in Europae
Mediterraneotra Medio Evo e prima Eta Moderna,L'osservatorioitaliano, Atti del convegno, Centro di studi sulla civilta
del Tardo Medio Evo, San Miniato al Tedesco, 1990 (Pisa,
Pacini, 1992), 297-314.
20. These include the maps of Gabriel de Vallseca
(Maiorca, 1439 and 1447), with which, however, the
Harleian maps have nothing else in common. See Campbell, 'Portolan charts' (note 15), 378. See also Piero
Falchetta, 'Manuscript no. 10057 in the Biblioteca
Marciana, Venice: a possible source for the Catalan
Atlas?' ImagoMundi 46 (1994), 19-28.
21. Roberto Almagia, MonumentaCartographicaVaticana,
1. Planisferi, Carte Nautiche e affini dal secolo XIV al XVII
esistenti nella Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana (Vatican City,
Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, 1942), 32-41, pl. XIII.
Falchetta, 'Marinai, mercanti, cartografi, pittori' (see note
15), esp. note 84, thinks this map is a copy from Fra
Mauro by Grazioso Benincasa.
22. The legend on Harley MS 3686 reads: 'insula tille est
loco inhabitabilis [ ... margin torn] / yemen est magnam
frigilitatem [sic for frigiditatem] et [ . . . margin torn] /
caliditatem et sunt insulae triginta'. In Bianco it is: 'ttile est
lochus inabitabilis / quam in istate nichil potes / cresere
per chalorem et in gieme / propter mag[ni] frigoris
chongelacionis'. The myth of the extreme summer heat
of Thule had been transmitted from the first half of the
14th century by the Polychroniconof Ranulf Higden. Luigi
De Anna, Il mito del Nord. Tradizioniclassichee medievali
(Naples, Liguori, 1994), 45, n. 98.
23. Brancie, the city of Brjansk, in the central Russian
upland is better placed here, therefore, than the branzica
or branchichaon the Dnepr in the nautical cartography, for
which see Giuseppe Caraci, Italiani e Catalaninella primitiva
cartografia nautica medievale (Rome, Istituto di Scienze
geografiche e cartografiche dell'Universita degli Studi,
1959), 50-53.
24. The Danube separates polana in the north from
ungariain the south, as in Bianco. Septemcastranunc veginel
is a toponym that dates back to the Dalorto-Dulcert maps,
on which, however, it has been placed farther east, north
of the Black Sea.
25. See, for example, f.98: daitis instead of daix; f.99v:
masotilifluvii instead of masotilusfluvius. The error was not

common in either Ptolemaic or nautical cartography. This

usage, however, was found frequently in Bianco's 1436
atlas.
26. Norganzeris found on the mappamundi in the Bianco
atlas; Norganziis the spelling on the nautical chart of 1367
signed by the Pizigani brothers. The Catalan Atlas (1375)
has the form Organci, which is nearer to the original
Urgent, on the Syr Darja.
27. Thanks to their classical origin and their association
with the Alexander romances, the caspeyor caspicimontes
can be found in a large number of medieval mappaemundi. In the 15th century they were still part of general
knowledge: on the mappamundi of Fra Mauro, a legend
placed in the sea to the north of the populi diti bargu reads
'some believe that these mountains are the monti caspii,
but this opinion is not true'. Evidently, the author of
Harley MS 3686 was among those who upheld the not
true opinion; for he labelled all the mountains that
Ptolemy placed in the farthest parts of Asia caspey,except
for the aurey mountains. The aurey mountains are
probably a combination of the Anarei of Ptolemy with
the montes aurei, which Isidore of Seville sited in the
remotest parts of northern Asia.
28. The text of Harley MS 3686 has tingitania,whereas in
15th-century Ptolemaic maps, including Bianco's world
map of 1436, Tinganicais more often used. Fra Mauro has
Tingintanea.
29. See Campbell, Portolancharts (note 15), 378.
30. S. Harrison Thompson, Latin Bookhands of the Later
Middle Ages 1100-1500 (Cambridge, University Press,
1969), 70 and passim.
31. Marica Milanesi, 'La rinascita della geografia
dell'Europa (1350-1480)', in Europa e Mediterraneotra
Medio Evo e prima Eta Moderna (see note 19), 35-59.
32. For a brief evaluation of the cartographic activity at
Ferrara in the 15th century see Marica Milanesi, 'Ii
commento al Dittamondo di Guglielmo Capello (14351437)', in Alla corte degli Estensi. Filosofia, arte e cultura a
Ferrara nei secoli XV e XVI, Atti del Convegno Internazionale, Ferrara, 1992 (in press). For the cartographical
production of the Kingdom of Naples see the ample
treatment, the fruit of original research, published
recently by Valerio, Societa Uomini e Istituzioni (note 15).
With the publication of Piero Falchetta's research (see
notes 15, 18), an up-to-date evaluation of Venetian chart
and map making in the 14th and 15th centuries is
beginning. The same cannot be said of the other Italian
centres. The attention of historians of cartography and
geography continues to be fixed on Florence. Even the
interesting 15th-century map production in Genoa
remains little known (Gaetano Ferro, 'Cartografi e
dinastie di cartografi a Genova', in Due mondi a confronto
1492-1728. CristoforoColomboe l'aperturadegli spazi. Mostra
storico-cartografica
(Rome, Istituto Poligrafico e Zecca dello
Stato, 1992, 2 vols.), 1: 245-61.
33. For instance, on folio 2, 'toragraphia' for 'corographia'.
34. 'Nota cumque dicit medium ipsius pa[ra]lelli proporcionem habere ad meridianum quemadmodum in
prima tabula europe quam undecim ad viginti degradibus
intellegit tabule linearis pa [ra]lelli qualiter se habet gradus
longitudinis ad gradum latitudinis paralellus enim qui per
medium ipsius scilicet loci est proporcionem habet ad
meridianum latitudinis quam undecim ad viginti eadem
modo in reliquis comparandum est et non totam longitudinem ad latitudinem ex quo accidit in quibusdam
tabulis maiorem fieri longitudinem latitudinem et aliquibus e converso quasi dicit quod gradus undecim in

61

62

meridiano ipsius tabule prime et ante quantitate quante

fuit viginti in paralello quod experiencia circuli dimensurabis subtiliter investigando.' [Note that when [Ptolemy]
says that the central parallel is to the meridian as 11
degrees are to 20, as in the first plate of Europe, he means
the proportion between the degree of longitude measured
on the linear parallel of the plate, and the degree of
latitude: in fact, the parallel which passes through the
centre of that place has a proportion of 11 to 20 with the
meridian of the latitude. With all the other maps it is
necessary to compare in the same way [the length of the
degrees], not the entire values of longitude and latitude;
wherefore [because of this erroneous interpretation] it
happens that on certain plates the longitude is greater
than the latitude, and on others vice versa, as if [Ptolemy]
said that 11 degrees on the meridian of the first plate are
equivalent to 20 degrees on the parallel. Something that
you will measure, with subtle investigation, experimenting on the circle.] This note is not present in any other
Ptolemaic manuscripts known to me.
35. Iacobus Angelus, translator of the Geographia (and
also of Plato and Plutarch), was for him jacobus anglus'
(f. 1), compatriot (and colleague?) of Robertus Anglus
whose writings on the quadrant, the astrolabe and the
gnomon were studied in all Italian universities. A glosser
of a 1448 Ptolemaic codex of Germanic provenance fell
into the same error (B.L. Harley MS 3290).
36. Jacopo d'Angelo did not justify his choice of the
spelling 'parallelus', though he did explain his decisions
elsewhere (between the terms 'geographia' and 'cosmographia', for instance, and for the use of 'cosmographia').
In this case he was implicitly declaring himself in favour of
the word already in use, thus avoiding introducing a
useless neologism for a concept already known.
37. For these characteristics see the studies by Gentile
cited in note 5.
38. He was perhaps Nicolaus Germanus himself. See
Durand, Vienna-Klosterneuburg
Map Corpus(note 4), 155.
39. Roberto Almagia, 'Osservazioni sull'opera geografica
di Francesco Berlinghieri', Archiviodella Regia Deputazione
Romana di Storia Patria 67 (1945): 209-57 (reprinted in
Almagia, Scrittigeografici,ed. Lucio Gambi (Milan, Cisalpino, 1961), 497-526); Rossella Bessi, 'Appunti sulla
Geographia di Francesco Berlinghieri', in Atti del Convegno
Firenzee il MondoNuovo (see note 2), 159-75; Milanesi, 'La
rinascita della geografia dell'Europa' (see note 31).
40. Germaine Aujac, 'Le peintre florentin Piero del
Massaio, et la Cosmographie de Ptolem&e', Geographia
Antiqua, 3-4 (1994-1995): 187-209.
41. Vladimiro Valerio, 'Astronomia e cartografia nella
Napoli aragonese', in Atti del ConvegnoFirenze e il Mondo
Nuovo (see note 2), 291-303; V. Valerio. Societi Uomini e
Istituzioni(see note 15), 73-98.
42. Campbell, 'Portolan charts' (see note 15); Falchetta,
'Marinai, mercanti, cartografi, pittori' (see note 15).
43. An association between Ptolemaic world maps and
nautical atlases or general geographical works was
unusual at the time. See Falchetta, Atlante Nautico di
Andrea Bianco (note 18). Another Ptolemaic world map
drawn between 1455 and 1471 by an unknown Venetian
cartographer is in the nautical atlas known as Deissmann
47, now in the Topkapi Museum, Istanbul (Falchetta,
'Marinai, mercanti, cartografi, pittori' [see note 15], esp.
note 131). A Ptolemaic world map, drawn at Ferrara by a
Florentine illuminator, illustrates Guglielmo Capello's
commentary (c.1435-1437) on the 14th-century Dittamondoof Fazio degli Uberti; the same work also contains a

mappamundi organised by climatic zones, and one with

the seven climata (Milanesi, 'f1 commento' [see note 32]).
44. Fra Mauro wrote: 'This work ... does not possess in
itself that completeness which it should, because certainly
it is not possible for the human intellect without some
demonstration from Above to verify in every respect this
cosmography or mappemonde . . . Wherefore if anyone
objects to this work because I have not followed Claudius
Ptolemy, whether in the form or in his measurements of
longitude and latitude [per longefa e per largefa], I do not
wish to defend Ptolemy in more detail than he defends
himself, when in the first chapter of his second book he
says that one can speak correctly of those parts which one
practises continually, but that of those less frequented
nobody should think that anyone can speak so correctly.
Understanding, however, that he could not verify his
cosmography in every point, the task being long and
difficult, life short and experimentation fallacious, the fact
remains that he admits that in the course of time this
description may be bettered or surer information may be
available than he had. Therefore I say that in my time I
have sought to verify his writings by experiment,
investigating for many years and frequenting trustworthy
persons, who have seen with their own eyes that which
here I faithfully demonstrate'. This translation is based on
the transcription by Tullia Gasparrini Leporace in II
Mappamondo di fra' Mauro, with an introduction by
Roberto Almagi& (Rome, Libreria dello Stato, 1956), pl.
XL. See also Gunther Hamann, 'Fra' Mauro und seine
italienische Kartographie seiner Zeit als Quellen zur
friihen Entdeckungsgeschichte', Mitteilungen des Instituts
78 (Hermann Bohlaus
fur Osterreichische
Geschichtforschung
Nachfuhrung, Wien-Koln-Graz, 1970): 358-71; Wojciech
Iwanczak, 'Entre l'espace ptolemaique et l'empirie: les
cartes de fra' Mauro', Midievales 18 ('Espaces du Moyen
Age', printemps 1990): 53-68.
45. The use of the clima instead of the parallel is found in
Bianco's version of the Ptolemaic world map. It obviously
indicates a knowledge of the Almagestand its derivatives,
but climata are also common in other 15th-century
codices of the Geographia, all (in so far as I know),
Florentine: B.A.V. Vat. 5698 (beginning 15th century,
only on the world map); Laur. XXX.2 (Pietro del Massaio,
c.1455-1462); Laur. XXX.3 (Nicolaus Germanus, c.1466);
Laur. Edili 175 (G. Antonio Vespucci, after 1475).
46. Bianco was described as ammiraglioof the fleet of the
Tana (1437), and ammiraglio and uomo di consiglio in
Flanders and England (1438, 1443, 1446, 1449, 1450,
1451), Beirut and Alessandria (1440), Romania (1445)
and Barbary (1447). See Angela Codazzi, 'Andrea Bianco',
Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani 10 (Rome, Istituto
Poligrafico dello Stato, 1968): 223-25. See also Falchetta,
'Marinai, mercanti, cartografi, pittori' (note 15); and
Falchetta, Atlante Nautico di Andrea Bianco (note 18). The
areas represented most often and with the greatest
innovations in Harley MS 3686 are on the margins of
Europe. In the course of the 15th century the northern
countries and those of central and eastern Europe were
increasingly depicted in written descriptions and through
geographical and nautical charts with inland detail
(Milanesi, 'La rinascita della geografia dell'Europa' [see
note 31], passim).
47. Regional boundaries-except
for Granada-were
unusual on 15th-century nautical and world maps. We
find them only in the mappamundi of Fra Mauro and in
the Borgiana V map in the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana,
both realised with the collaboration of Andrea Bianco

(Roberto Almagi&, MonumentaCartographicaVaticana [see

note 21], 32-40, esp. 36, 38).
48. Fra Mauro was thinking of clients who did not know
Latin or did not read the classics when he explained: 'In
this work [the mappamundi destined for the King of
Portugal] I have of necessity consented to use modern and
vernacular terms because truly had I done otherwise few
would have understood me except a few lettered men,
and it happens that they too cannot reconcile their
authors with the practices of today' (Leporace, II

Mappamondo di fra' Mauro [see note 44], pl. XXX).

Francesco Berlinghieri in 1482 published his modified
text and maps of the Geographiatranslated into the Italian
vernacular tongue for the same type of users: Le septe
giornate de la Geographia (Florence, Nicolaus Laurentii
Alamanus, c.1482).
49. For the transcriptions see Leporace, II Mappamondodi
fra' Mauro (note 44), p1s. XLI, XXXIX.
50. See note 48.

APPENDIX: Paralellus/parallelus
The first translator into Latin of Ptolemy's Geographia, Jacopo d'Angelo disliked neologisms but used, without
explanation, the spelling 'parallelus' instead of the form found in medieval scientific literature, 'paralellus'. D'Angelo
probably knew philology better than science, creating his neologism through ignorance of mathematics and astronomy; as
Johannes Werner wrote, 'ob summam quadruvii et mathematicarum artium imperitiam' (see text note 4). In short,
d'Angelo cannot have read John of Holywood's treatise 'De Sphaera mundi' (1 3th century) whence the spelling 'paralellus'
comes. Thanks to Holywood, 'paralellus' became the normal spelling for all medieval astronomical literature: we find it in
Pietro d'Abano's Conciliatorcontroversiarumat the beginning of the 14th century, in the Imago Mundi and in the
commentaries on Ptolemy's Geographiaby Pierre d'Ailly at the beginning of the 15th century, in the manuscripts and 15thcentury printed editions of the 'Sphaera' itself, and in Ptolemy's Quadripartitusprinted at Venice by Erhard Ratdolt in 1483.
The spelling was adopted by Guillaume Fillastre in the maps and text of his 1427 manuscript edition of Ptolemy's
Geographia,by Andrea Bianco in the Ptolemaic world map in the atlas of 1436, and occasionally by Fra Mauro on the
circular world map of c.1459, where, however, the spelling 'parallelo' appears more often.
In mapless Germanic copies of Ptolemy's Geographia, such as the British Library's Harley MS 3290 or the Codex
Tellerianus-Remensis (Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale, MS Lat. 3123), too, the form 'paralellus' is used regularly. We find
'paralellus' in the printed map of Germany by Nicolaus Cusanus, dated Eichstatt 1491, whose original drawing dates back to
mid-century. In Germany, Jacopo d'Angelo's new spelling 'parallelus' was used only by humanists like Johannes
Regiomontanus and, later, Johannes Werner and Willibald Pirckheymer. Otherwise, the traditional 'paralellus' form was
the norm for Nicolaus Germanus's manuscript Ptolemaic maps. It was also used (though only on the world map) in
Ptolemy's Geographia,printed in Bologna 1477; it appears in text and maps of the Geographiapublished at Ulm in 1482 and
1486, and in the commentary, written in Upper Germany, to the Ulm edition of 1486. In the first half of the 16th century, as
'paralello', it was used by the Portuguese glosser of the Geographia,Pedro Nufies (Petri Nonii Salaciensis opera [Basel,
Sebastianus Henricpetri, 1592]).
The spelling 'paralellus' thus can be used as a clue in the complicated story of the Latin codices of Ptolemy's Geographia,
whose provenance is always so difficult to establish. It is a sign for the traditional scientific culture, based on medieval
literature, as opposed to the humanistic scholarship, based on the study of ancient texts. We find the old form 'paralellus' in
non-humanistic cultural environments both in Germanic areas and in Italy, mainly outside Florence.
Although Nicolaus Germanus worked in Florence, he also used the spelling 'paralellus'. This suggests that he had arrived
from Germany with an already established cosmographical culture rather than learning a new one in Italy. Germanus was a
fair enough Latinist, but he did not adopt the humanistic spelling 'parallelus' then current in Florence: he seems to have
been sure that his version was the more correct.
The dubious and sometimes groundless reconstruction of Nicolaus Germanus' life is the weak point of Durand's otherwise
fine book The Vienna-Klosterneuburg
Map Corpus(see text note 4). His well-documented researches on Germanic cartography
in the first half of the 15th century and his implied criticism of the 'Florentine priority' in 15th-century Ptolemaic
production, however, remain essential to the evaluation of Italian cartographical production between 1460 and 1480. In
1980, Joseph Babicz ('Donnus Nicolaus Germanus, Probleme seiner Biographie und sein Platz in der Rezeption der
ptolemaischen Geographie', in Land- und Seekarten im Mittelalter und in der fruhen Zeit, Cornelius Koeman, ed.
[Wolfenbutteler Forschungen. Hrsgg. von der Herzog August Bibliothek, Bd. 7; Munich, Kraus International Publications,
1980], 9-42), rejected Durand's idea that Nicolaus arrived in Italy with his cartographic ideas already formed by studies at
Klosterneuburg or in a similar environment (pp. 81-86), but in 1987-1989, after carefully examining new documents, he
accepted Durand's thesis ('The celestial and terrestrial globes of the Vatican Library, dating from 1477, and their maker
Donnus Nicolaus Germanus (ca.1420-ca.1490)', Der Globusfreund35-37 (1987-1989): 155-66).
It seems to me beyond doubt that Nicolaus Germanus arrived in Italy with a rich astronomical, cosmographical and
cartographical experience. With his Germanic university heritage, Germanus applied himself in Italy to an already typical
Florentine activity, the production of luxury editions of Ptolemy's Geographia.Germanus' innovations are of German origin.
The practice of indicating the number of miles per degree and the use of trapezoidal and conic projections for regional maps
Map Corpus
had already been used in the Trier-Koblenz fragments X and Y dated 1437 (Durand, The Vienna-Klosterneuburg
[see text note 4], 84, 145-59). One of Germanus' minor innovations was to use a broken line in red to mark regional
boundaries. On the other hand, Ptolemaic regional boundaries on a modern map were, apparently, indicated for the first
time in the codex discussed in this paper, B.L. Harley MS 3686.
RESUM12: Le texte du MS Harley 3686 de la British Library est un exemplaire
Geographia de Ptolemee
Afrique.

enrichi d'un ensemble

On peut inferer des rapprochements

latin anonyme

inedit de 18 cartes non ptolemeennes

avec l'atlas nautique

d'Andrea

Bianco

et sans date de la
d'Europe,
(1436)

Asie et

un origine

63

venitienne pour ce manuscrit ainsi qu'une datation entre 1436 et 1450. Le contour des cartes s'inspire des
portulans, mais le detail topographique des terres et la toponymie semblent provenir du texte de Ptolemee. Ce
manuscrit represente l'un des plus anciens exemples de la synthese entre le portulan, la carte de Ptolemee et
la mappamundi du Moyen Age qui ont marque la cartographic du XVe sie&cle,et en meme temps l'unique
exemple d'une telle synthese a Le'chelon regional. Le MS Harley 3686 revele certains des problemes
techniques et methodologiques que la Geographiadut poser aux cartographes de cette epoque.
ZUSAMMENFASSUNG:Der Text der Handschrift Harley 3686 in der British Library ist eine anonyme, nicht
datierte lateinische Fassung von Ptolemaus' Geographiamit einem neu eingefuhrten Set von achtzehn nichtptolemaischen Karten von Europa, Asien und Afrika. Verbindungen mit Andrea Bianco's See-Atlas (1436)
deuten auf einen venezianischen Ursprung der Handschrift und auf eine Datierung zwischen 1436 und 1450.
Die Kartenumrisse stammen von Portolankarten ab, aber die topographischen Details und Toponymen im
Binnenland scheinen im ptolemaischen Text ihren Ursprung zu haben. Der Kodex bildet eines der altesten
Beispiele einer Synthese von Portolankarte, ptolemdischer Karte und mittelalterlichen mappamundi, welche
die Kartographie aus dem fiinfzehnten Jahrhundert kennzeichen, und er ist das einzige Beispiel einer solchen
Synthese auf regionalem Niveau. Harley 3686 enthuillt einige der technischen und methodischen Probleme
welche die Geographiaan die zeitgenossischen Kartenmacher gestellt hat.

Forthcoming International Conferences and Public Lecture Series of

Interest to Historians of Cartography
October 3-5
October 6-9

October 24-26

October 31November 3

March 14-16

64

1996
8 Kartographiehistorischen Colloquium, Bern.
15th International Symposium of
the International Map Collectors'
Society (IMCoS), Riga, Latvia.
12th Kenneth Nebenzahl, Jr.,
Lectures in the History of Cartography: 'Maps on the move:
cartography for transportation
and travel'.
Society for the History of Discoveries, Portland, Maine.
1997
'Surveying the Record: North
American Scientific Exploration
to 1900', sponsored by the American
Society
Philosophical
Library, Philadelphia.

'Celebration of Helen Wallis', St

Hugh's College, Oxford.
June 22-28
18th International Cartographic
Conference, Stockholm.
17th International Conference on
July 6-10
the History of Cartography,Lisbon.
August 14-16
Society for the History of Discoveries, St John's, Newfoundland.
September 26-9 16th International Symposium of
the International Map Collectors'
Society (IMCoS), Budapest.
April 12

October

1998
17th International Symposium of
the International Map Collectors'
Society (IMCoS), Tokyo.
1999

July

18th International Conference on

the History of Cartography,
Athens.