Note 751 — Chapter II

Mauro’s map was called by Ramusio, who saw it, an improved copy of one brought from Cathay by Marco Polo. It is preserved in the Biblioteca Marciana at Venice. It was made by Mauro under the command of Don Alonso V., and Bianco assisted him. The exact date is in dispute; but all agree to place it between 1457 and 1460. A copy was made on vellum in 1804, which is now in the British Museum. Our cut follows one corner of the reproduction in Santarem’s Atlas. A photographic fac-simile has been issued in Venice by Ongania, and St. Martin (Atlas, p. vii) follows this fac-simile. Ruge (Geschichte des Zeitalters der Entdeckungen) gives a modernized and more legible reproduction. There are other drawings in Zurla’s Fra Mauro; Vincent’s Commerce and Navigation of the Ancients (1797, 1807); Lelewel’s Moyen Age (pl. xxxiii). Cf. Studi della Soc. Geografia Italia (1882), ii. 76, for references.