Note 231 — Chapter II · THE CONTRIBUTION OF WESTERN CHRISTENDOM BEFORE 1100 A. D.

See Mori, Misuraz. eratos., 1911, pp. 390–391. C. B. Jourdain (Infl. Arist., 1861, pp. 6–7) maintained that Raban Maur (De universo, XII, 2) inscribed the circumference of the terrestrial globe in an ideal cube, the angles of which correspond to the four cardinal points. Nothing in the text, however, would justify our supposing that Raban Maur had in mind either a globe or a cube. On the contrary he was doubtless thinking of the orbis terrarum in the Roman sense (see below, note 58), that is to say, of the circle of the known lands. Peschel (Geschichte, 1877, p. 100, note 3) and Marinelli (La geogr., 1882, p. 552, note 5; Scritti minori, vol. i, [1908?], p. 352, note 1) tried to interpret the passage to mean that Raban Maur held that the orbis terrarum was square. Bertolini (I quattro angoli, 1910, pp. 1439–1441), however, has demonstrated conclusively that the text in question indicates that he thought it was a circle.