Page:The history of medieval Europe.djvu/445

THE MEDIEVAL REVIVAL OF LEARNING 395 steamer. Therefore long before Columbus there were deep- sea sailors who were not afraid to venture far out of sight of land, farther even than the Northmen who had ventured still earlier from Norway to the Orkneys and Shetlands, from these to the Faroe Islands, and thence to Iceland, to Greenland, and to Vinland. The map of 1351 to which we just referred is known as jthe Laurentian Portolano. It also, possibly by a lucky guess, represents the shape of the continent of Africa The porto- iinore nearly correctly than does any other map lam Ibefore the rounding of the Cape of Good Hope at the close pf the fifteenth century. The word portolano means a 1" handy-plan," and is applied to the charts of the coast-line (of which our earliest examples date about 1300. But these [first extant portolani are so elaborate and accurate that |there must have been a preceding period of preparation before such detailed and correct charts could be produced. They are evidently the result of close observation by prac- tical men and were made by sailors for sailors. They are the first true maps in the modern sense in the history of the world, and represent an immense and sudden advance in jcartography. They give a large number of place names and indicate headlands, bays, and even shoals. Those which we possess are chiefly the work of Italians and are especially Accurate for the Mediterranean Sea, but often display other ,coasts of Europe with fidelity, and sometimes expand into jworld-maps like the Laurentian Portolano already men- tioned.