HERE BEGINS THE DARK SEA

A study of one of history’s most influential maps.

In this follow-up to Inventing the World: Venice and the Transformation of Western Civilization, Cornell anthropologist Small provides a fascinating exploration of the impressively detailed mappa mundi created by Venetian monk Fra Mauro. Crafted by Mauro and his team between 1450 and 1459, the map, 7 feet in diameter, is on display in Venice, and it is both an artistic masterpiece and an encyclopedic resource that includes numerous textual explanations. Small begins by explaining the history and significance of mapmaking before moving on to chronicle the work of this particular mapmaker. Fra Mauro, whose real or full name is lost to history, was a Camaldolese monk on the Venetian island of San Michele. As the author notes, his life story is murky. “The creator of one of the greatest maps in the world remains an enigma,” she writes. Nevertheless, his map speaks for him, literally, in that many of his comments on the map are written in the first person. Small explains that Fra Mauro, though himself not a traveler, relied on eyewitness accounts for his information. Working in the trade city of Venice, he was well placed to learn about faraway places. The result is a map that visualizes Africa better than any map up to this point; it also includes places such as Japan in a time when very little was known to Europeans about East Asia. Beyond this, Fra Mauro laid out his map with a southern orientation and did not center it around Jerusalem or Europe. His map, writes the author, was “the instigator of change, the map that rejected religion and went so far as to embrace the nascent methodology and philosophy of science.” Small concludes by describing Fra Mauro’s influence on European exploration, cartography, and culture.

Interesting and approachable, this book will appeal to any student of geography or world history.