Introduction I
Introduction This volume continues to show that there were clear differences in the character of Western medieval world maps, depending on the sub-period in which they were created, and the continued progress that was being made in Asian cartography. It is thus not possible to generalize accurately for the mappaemundi of this thousand-year period variously referred to as the “Medieval Period”, the “Middle Ages”, or even the “Dark Ages”. In what David Woodward calls the Patristic period, from about A.D. 400 to 700, three basic cartographic traditions - the Macrobian, Orosian, and Isidorian - were established, and these do recur throughout the entire medieval period. In the second period, from about 700 to 1100, in which a larger sample of mappaemundi first appears, little innovation is seen in Europe except in the maps of Beatus (#207, Book IIA), despite the renewed interest in natural science; however, considerable expertise was becoming evident in Asia. It is not until the third period, from about 1100 to 1300, with the influx and translation of numerous Arabic and Greek manuscripts, especially the Almagest by Ptolemy (#119, Book I), that scientific interest re-awakens (for examples of maps from these two early medieval periods, see #200-#226 in Book IIA of these monographs). The last period, from about 1300 to 1500 and the subject of this volume, stands apart from the earlier tradition of mappaemundi and acts as a transitional stage between the medieval and modern worlds of mapping. The three frameworks of maps: monastic, nautical, and Ptolemaic, which had for a while each enjoyed a separate and parallel development in Europe, came together in the 15th century and set the stage for the technical advances of the European Renaissance.
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