that I know of, absolutely free from the traditional _idola_, is
the Map of the known World from the Portulano Mediceo (in the
Laurentian Library), of which an extract is engraved in the atlas
of Baldelli-Boni’s Polo. I need not describe it, however, because I
cannot satisfy myself that it makes much use of Polo’s contributions,
and its facts have been embodied in a more ambitious work of the next
generation, the celebrated Catalan Map of 1375 in the great Library of
Paris. This also, but on a larger scale and in a more comprehensive
manner, is an honest endeavour to represent the known world on the
basis of collected facts, casting aside all theories pseudo-scientific
or pseudo-theological; and a very remarkable work it is. In this map it
seems to me Marco Polo’s influence, I will not say on geography, but on
map-making, is seen to the greatest advantage. His Book is the basis of
the Map as regards Central and Further Asia, and partially as regards
India. His names are often sadly perverted, and it is not always easy
to understand the view that the compiler took of his itineraries. Still
we have Cathay admirably placed in the true position of China, as a
great Empire filling the south-east of Asia. The Eastern Peninsula of
India is indeed absent altogether, but the Peninsula of Hither India
is for the first time in the History of Geography represented with a
fair approximation to its correct form and position,[11] and Sumatra
also (_Jaua_) is not badly placed. Carajan, Vocian, Mien, and Bangala,
are located with a happy conception of their relation to Cathay and to
India. Many details in India foreign to Polo’s book,[12] and some in
Cathay (as well as in Turkestan and Siberia, which have been entirely
derived from other sources) have been embodied in the Map. But the
study of his Book has, I conceive, been essentially the basis of those
great portions which I have specified, and the additional matter has
not been in mass sufficient to perplex the compiler. Hence we really
see in this Map something like the idea of Asia that the Traveller
himself would have presented, had he bequeathed a Map to us.
[Illustration: Part of the Catalan Map (1375).]
[Some years ago, I made a special study of the Far East in the Catalan
Map (_L’Extrême-Orient dans l’Atlas catalan de Charles V._, Paris,
1895), and I have come to the conclusion that the cartographer’s
knowledge of Eastern Asia is drawn almost entirely from Marco Polo. We
give a reproduction of part of the Catalan Map.—H. C.]
[Sidenote: Confusions in Cartography of the 16th century, from the
endeavour to combine new and old information.]