National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books

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MAPS OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.

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The second Asiatic map, which was, at the same time, restored by Grisellini, embraces western Asia, including the Black Sea and the Caspian, and contains all the geographical knowledge of his epoch regarding this part of Asia. As a survival from the Venetian map of 1447 it has still an unknown region with »Scytæ non subjecti», otherwise, at its easternmost edge, it gives us such modern denominations as Coteli Hindokusj, i. e. Kotel-i-Hindu-kush. Just south of the Fontes Ghjon or sources of the Amu-darya is Parvum Tibet with its capital Eskerud seu Tibet, perhaps Iskardu. The north-eastern part of Hindu-kush is still called Caucasus, and south of it is Regnum Cachemire. This map, therefore, does not at all touch the region we are studying, and the information it gives belongs to a time, 200 years later than Gastaldi.

On Diogo Homem's map of the world, Pl. XIX, the Indus is almost as usual, while the Ganges comes from the N.E. instead of N.W. The length of both rivers is very much exaggerated, depending on the fact that the Himalaya has been removed northwards to the centre of Asia, halfway between its north and south coasts. North of the mountains is India deserta, and south of them Desertum Indie. The date of this map seems not to be known, and only a very few dates from Diogo Homem's life have been preserved to our time. Most of his maps remained as manuscripts; those known were made in about 153o to 1576.1

We now come to GERHARD MERCATOR's famous World map of 1569, of which I have a copy on Pl. XX, representing our regions of Asia.' It is the most important cartographical monument of the sixteenth century and as such it may be regarded as the foundation of the more recent scientific geography. It shows how difficult it was even for the most erudite scholars to abandon Ptolemy, for Mercator does his best to save the Ptolemean image of Asia, and to reconcile it with the modern discoveries. Therefore he has, with really touching perseverance and industry created a monstrous representation of S.E. Asia, at a time when these parts were much better known.3

The coast-lines of the Indian Peninsula are very good indeed, and even better than those of Gastaldi a few years before. In the general orographical arrangement we recognise the ranges of Ptolemy, the spina dorsalis» of all the maps, and from it the several ramifications in different directions; the meridional Imaus, the meridional range west of it, which is a water-parting of the Sir-darya, the Casii montes and Asmirei montes separating the Oechardes from the Bautisus, the Bepyrrus mons, etc.

On Ptolemy's map, the Oechardes and Bautisus run eastwards, on Mercator's they run from south to north. On the Oechardes and its tributaries we recognise

I Hantzsch and Schmidt : Kartographische Denkmäler. Our Pl. XIX is a reproduction from a part of their Tafel XVII. 2 Drei Karten von Gerhard Mercator: Europa — Britische Inseln — Weltkarte. Facsimile-Licht-

druck nach den Originalen der Stadtbibliothek zu Breslau, herausgegeben von der Gesellschaft für Erdkunde zu Berlin. Berlin 1891.

3 Richthofen: China I, p. 643.

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