The Geography

PREFACE

original: "Non me fugit..." The first letter "N" is missing in the source text, as it was customary to leave a large space for an artist to paint a decorative initial by hand later. [N]it does not escape me, Most Blessed Father, that as I attempt to introduce something new into these maps, which Ptolemy the cosmographer A scholar who maps the general features of the universe and the earth. drew with such great genius and exquisite learning, this labor of ours will run into the censures of many. For everyone who sees this depiction of ours—contained in these maps which we send to you—especially those who are ignorant of the principles of geometry, will find it slightly different from the one published by Ptolemy. They will certainly accuse us of either lack of skill or rashness. Indeed, they will assert that we either did not know what we were doing or dared to corrupt such a great work, seeing it changed in some part. They will not be able to persuade themselves, nor will they think it right, that if a better way of drawing the world had existed, it would have escaped so great a man as Ptolemy certainly was. For he was the only one who, among many excellent cosmographers who flourished before him, saw the method by which he was the first to draw the layout of all lands in maps.

As if, indeed, that prince of poets, Homer, could not be put in order by Pisistratus; or the divine work of Lucretius could not be corrected by Cicero; or the Toledan tables could not be corrected by Alfonso! Nicolaus argues that even the greatest classical and scientific works have been improved by later scholars. The "Toledan tables" were astronomical charts that King Alfonso X of Castile famously updated into the "Alfonsine tables" in the 13th century. Therefore, there will surely be those who praise nothing except what they are confident they can understand themselves. Whatever they hope to be able to grasp with their own mind and thought, they will judge to be the only "good" way of drawing the world. And when they are overwhelmed by the density of the longitudinal lines that are not equidistant, they will say they prefer that sparse and vast depiction of Ptolemy marked with straight lines, rather than this varied and convenient one of ours, distinguished by hanging and inclined lines.

Truly, we do not say these things now because anything is found in Ptolemy’s depiction that needed to be corrected, amended, or put in order—since that man drew everything so skillfully and wisely that nothing seems lacking in his maps regarding the calculation of the layout of lands. Rather, we say this to expose the ignorance of those who, while holding no science or knowledge of such things, are moved by envy and a certain spite; if they see anything published by another that is beyond their own talents, they immediately turn to disparaging it.

But if there are any who are not entirely unskilled in geometry or cosmography, and who have read Ptolemy himself frequently and then contemplate our depiction with a calm mind, these will surely think us worthy of some praise, not censure. For they will see that we have undertaken a task so difficult and arduous, and brought it to such an excellent conclusion, that they are forced to marvel at it—especially when they discover that we have deviated only slightly from Ptolemy’s intention, even if we have changed the visual style of the map.

In order that you may now clearly see this to be the case, Holy Father, I ask you to attend for a moment to what Ptolemy says and what we have done. Ptolemy—as I have easily understood from his writings—teaches that there is a twofold method of drawing the world. One, he asserts, is when we make straight lines (to use his words from the beginning of the eighth book) for the meridians Lines of longitude running north to south. on individual maps, marking them not inclined and curved, but equidistant from each other. He testifies that the other method is when we express the earth's form everywhere with curved and inclined lines, as the logic of the layout of the earth itself requires, and not with straight lines. Furthermore, although he approved of the latter method more as being more artistic and subtle, he nevertheless followed the former [the straight lines] in his actual drawings.