![turdeyeblind:
It is a rare representative of one of the world’s greatest and most enduring mysteries: Where and how did medieval mapmakers, apparently armed with no more than a compass, an hourglass and sets of sailing directions, develop stunningly accurate maps of southern Europe, the Black Sea and North African coastlines, as if they were looking down from a satellite, when no one had been higher than a treetop?
1500s Cartography!
click the pic for full res (it’s stunning)
“Slim, handsome, intense, bespectacled, Hessler [mathematical wizard and the senior cartographic librarian at the Library of Congress] approached a priceless 1559 portolan chart on the table before him.”
Thought this was particularly enlightening. Really made interesting an otherwise dull article.
(Was this article written by Dan Brown??!)](http://fglorente.org/zen/albums/mapas/Mateo%20Prunes.gif)
It is a rare representative of one of the world’s greatest and most enduring mysteries: Where and how did medieval mapmakers, apparently armed with no more than a compass, an hourglass and sets of sailing directions, develop stunningly accurate maps of southern Europe, the Black Sea and North African coastlines, as if they were looking down from a satellite, when no one had been higher than a treetop?
click the pic for full res (it’s stunning)
“Slim, handsome, intense, bespectacled, Hessler [mathematical wizard and the senior cartographic librarian at the Library of Congress] approached a priceless 1559 portolan chart on the table before him.”
Thought this was particularly enlightening. Really made interesting an otherwise dull article.
(Was this article written by Dan Brown??!)
