The dawn of modern geographyA history of exploration and geographical science .. . nce more, some notice must be taken of maps whichhave now j)erished, but which we know to have beenexecuted before the close of the ninth century. And aboutone of these lost representations of an incredibly contractedworld there is an especial interest. tlie eastern boundary of the map,where the Tigris and Phison(? Ganges, see p. 391, n.) suggestan Oriental Paradise which is notexpressly indicated. The Nile, wemay notice, joins the Red Sea and theMediterranean ; Mount Sinai is de-signated by a huge triangle, and
The dawn of modern geographyA history of exploration and geographical science .. . nce more, some notice must be taken of maps whichhave now j)erished, but which we know to have beenexecuted before the close of the ninth century. And aboutone of these lost representations of an incredibly contractedworld there is an especial interest. tlie eastern boundary of the map,where the Tigris and Phison(? Ganges, see p. 391, n.) suggestan Oriental Paradise which is notexpressly indicated. The Nile, wemay notice, joins the Red Sea and theMediterranean ; Mount Sinai is de-signated by a huge triangle, and allthe people of Northern Europe areincluded in Gothia. Perhaps theclosest parallel to the Albi example(though far superior) is the Anglo- Saxon map of the tenth century, inthe Britisli Museum (Cotton, v.). The manuscript is numbered29,and entitled Miscellanea,scilicetDictionarium Glosse in map is on folio 487. ^ We have reproduced all thesefrom Santarems atlas. - See Bibl. Nat. (Paris) MSS. ; Strassburg MSS. civ. (15);Leyden Lat. MSS. Toss. Q. MAPPE MONDE FROM A MS. OF THE NINTH CENTURY, IN THELIBRARY AT STRASSBURG. [To/acep. 38G, YL] LOST MAPS—THE MAP OF BEATUS. 387 The sketches of Cosmas and of Albi are isolated works;it is in Spain, in the early days of jMoslem rule and in theheat of the Adoptionist controversy, that the original isprobably to be found of the first important group or schoolof Christian maps. The priest Beatus, who in the year 798died in the Benedictine convent of Vallecava or Yalcovadoin the Asturias, and who opposed Felix of Urgel and hisfollowers on the question of the adoption ^ of Christ inthe Godhead, has been identified with much plausibilityas the draughtsman of that plan which is the commonsource of the maps of St. Sever, Turin, Ashburnham, andseven others of the earlier Middle Ages, executed at varioustimes between the tenth and thirteenth centuries, but all de-pending on a Spanish-Arabic prototype of the eighth
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