character, but more elaborate, introducing China as a separate system.
Such indeed also is Blaeu’s Map (1663) excepting that Ptolemy’s
contributions are reduced to one or two.
In Sanson’s Map (1659) the data of Polo and the mediæval Travellers are
more cautiously handled, but a new element of confusion is introduced
in the form of numerous features derived from Edrisi.
It is scarcely worth while to follow the matter further. With the
increase of knowledge of Northern Asia from the Russian side, and that
of China from the Maps of Martini, followed by the surveys of the
Jesuits, and with the real science brought to bear on Asiatic Geography
by such men as De l’Isle and D’Anville, mere traditional nomenclature
gradually disappeared. And the task which the study of Polo has
provided for the geographers of later days has been chiefly that of
determining the true localities that his book describes under obsolete
or corrupted names.
[My late illustrious friend, Baron _A. E. Nordenskiöld_, who has
devoted much time and labour to the study of Marco Polo (see his
_Periplus_, Stockholm, 1897), and published a facsimile edition of one
of the French MSS. kept in the Stockholm Royal Library (see vol. ii.
_Bibliography_, p. 570), has given to _The Geographical Journal_ for
April, 1899, pp. 396–406, a paper on _The Influence of the “Travels
of Marco Polo” on Jacobo Gastaldi’s Maps of Asia_. He writes (p. 398)
that as far as he knows, none “of the many learned men who have devoted
their attention to the discoveries of Marco Polo, have been able to
refer to any maps in which all or almost all those places mentioned
by Marco Polo are given. All friends of the history of geography will
therefore be glad to hear that such an atlas from the middle of the
sixteenth century really does exist, viz. Gastaldi’s ‘Prima, seconda
e terza parte dell’Asia.’” All the names of places in Ramusio’s Marco
Polo are introduced in the maps of Asia of Jacobo Gastaldi (1561). Cf.
_Periplus_, liv., lv., and lvi.
I may refer to what both Yule and myself say _supra_ of the Catalan
Map.—H. C.]
[Sidenote: Alleged introduction of Block-printed Books into Europe by
Marco Polo.]