Genoese World Map, 1457; Facsimile and Critical Text Incorporating in Free Translation the Studies of Professor Theobald Fischer, REV. with the Addition of Copious Notes Volume 1457 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1912 edition. Excerpt: ...branches, our author follows Ptolemy. In the region at the foot of the mountain between the Indus and the Ganges we find the Indian desert represented. In contrast, the Ganges is represented according to recent information, that is apparently from the record of Conti. It receives its water through three tributaries from the great watershed. Two of these tributaries on the left seem to be the Brahmaputra and the Barak, though the larger one on the north may be intended as the Irawadi, since on this lies Ava, and above it is a legend taken from Conti: "Maius Gange qui aliter daua dicitur" "Rather the Ganges which otherwise is called the Dava.1 Though our cosmographer makes certain mistakes in relation to the chief stream of India, yet his representation of the hydrography of Asia is near the truth, and, as stated, is much better than that given by Fra Mauro. As the Indus and its delta received special consideration, so also did the Ganges, the mouth of which is marked by the following legend: "Hostia Gangis fluvii curus latitudo est XV miliaribus in cuius ripa arundines adeo magne ut armum excedant insule et nuces quas Indas dicimus procreant" "The mouth of the Ganges River, the width of which is fifteen miles, on whose banks grow canes so large that they exceed the size of the arm, and the islands grow nuts which we call Indian." This legend is also taken from Conti with some modification.2 i It is interesting to compare the maps with the representations of cer-representation of the Nile River and tain seventeenth-and eighteenth-cen' its sources as laid down on Ptolemy's tury chart-makers. i Conti's record states that "quitting called by the inhabitants Dava. Hav-this city Cernove, he traveled ing sailed up this river for the space through...