East Asia and China in Western Manuscript Planispheres and Nautical Maps（14th-16th Centuries）

——a Study of Maps from Vatican Library's Manuscript Collections

Clara YU Dong

I Introduction

For more than three thousand years, the ancient world was linked by trading routes that connected the Mediterranean World with the far off lands of Asia. Along with the pursuit by the Greeks of maritime exploration, commerce and colonization developed an outstanding body of geographic knowledge. Hecataeus（c.550-c.490 BC），a geographer in Miletus at the end of the 6 th century BC, already had some knowledge of India. Ktesias（400 BC-?），Greek physician and historian, uses the term“Seres”to indicate people of China in his work Indica, the first Greek book to be wholly devoted to the exotic land of India.

Following Zhang Qian's embassies, commercial relations between China and Central as well as Western Asia flourished, as many Chinese missions were sent throughout the end of the 2nd and the 1st century BC, initiating the development of the Silk Road. The Roman historian Lucius Annaeus Florus（c.74 AD-c.130 AD）describes the visit of numerous envoys, including Seres, to the first Roman Emperor Augustus（reigned 27 BC-14 AD）.

The term Seres and Serica were mentioned in Roman literature, such as Virgil in his Georgics（37 BC）； Pliny the Elder（23-79）in his Naturalis Historiæ; Pomponius Mela（1st century）in his Cosmographia, sive De situ orbis. Europeans began to use“Sinae”to indicate China in mid-1st century. Sinae was an ancient Greek and Roman name for the people who dwelt south of the Seres in the eastern extremity of the inhabitable world. References to the Sinae include mention of a city that the Romans called Sera Metropolis, which is modern Chang'an or Luoyang. Serica and Sinae were two different terms used by Europeans to refer to China through the ancient time. Meanwhile, Ptolemy describes in his Geographia（150 AD）both Serica and Sinae, and also talks about“Sera, the Capital of the Seres. ”

European progress during the early Middle Ages was slight, while Islamic and Chinese cartography made considerable progress. The Arabs translated Ptolemy's treatises and carried on his tradition.

The end of the 13th and beginning of the 14th centuries marks the beginning of modern cartography, with its glorious tradition developed over the following centuries. Modern cartography is represented primarily by a category of cartographic documents, which are closely related to their origin and to their subsequent evolution in nautical maps or portolan charts（or both kinds more simply but not exactly, referred to as portolans）. These maps are of exceptional interest, both for multiple, complex issues inherent in the maps themselves and for their relation to the history of the discoveries and for the process of accruing general geographical knowledge. These nautical maps consist sometimes in single or loose charts, at other times in collections of maps, i. e., atlases.

The Western manuscript maps of 14 th to 16 th centuries in the Vatican Library include late Medieval planispheres, modern world maps and Nautical charts of the Age of Discovery. Most of these maps were displayed in“Pearls in Paradise: Exhibition of Precious Maps and Archives from the Vatican Apostolic Library, ”Macau July-August 2015. We will see through these maps how the Western knowledge on East Asia and China developed over three centuries.

Among its outstanding antiquities and precious codices, the Vatican Library proudly holds several important maps: a circular planisphere annexed to Fra Paolino Minotita's essay De Mapa Mundi, the most ancient map with modern elements which has survived to the present; maps of Pietro Vesconte, the first author of nautical maps whose name is well-known; a map produced probably in Fra Mauro's famous workshop in S. Michele in Murano; Diogo Ribeiro's well known planisphere; the planisphere called Borgiano, etc., and maps originally accompanying codices of Ptolemy's Geographia, of which the Vatican Library is known to hold some of the oldest and authoritative copies.

II Western knowledge on East Asia and China in late Medieval maps

At the end of the 13 th century, nautical maps appeared as a new artifact, without relationship to previous cartographic products. Because these charts were primarily for navigational purposes, they are characterized by the fact that, they are essentially limited to the representation of the coasts, which are notable for very high precision, and to the abundant notes relating to the coasts, while the inner regions are neglected.

However there are also cartographic representations of the entire known world, named planispheres, which can be considered modern. These modern planispheres, while reconnecting in various ways to previous maps and other works, also introduce, in the second half of the 13th century, entirely new elements, especially for the interior of Asia. These came from contemporary travelers, for example, the first missionaries sent to the Mongol Emperor, Giovanni da Pian del Carpine（c.1180-1252） and Guglielmo di Rubruk（ca.1210-ca.1270）, later also the Polos. It seems that the first planisphere with modern elements is the one annexed with Ruggero Bacone's Opus majus in which the results of Rubruk's travels were used, but it is lost. After this, the most ancient one to survive today is a planisphere contained in a Vatican codex, the circle planisphere annexed to Fra Paolino Minorita's essay De Mapa Mundi（ca.1320）.

In their next evolution, these planispheres are associated, sometimes even combined with nautical maps or become part of nautical atlases.

Marco Polo and other Western travelers introduced China and Chinese civilization to Europe. Countries such as Cathay, Mangi, were unknown by Europeans. Marco Polo describes the Yuan capital Cambaluc（汗八里，today Beijing）that had a large population, thriving commerce; Quinsay（行在，today Hangzhou）in south China that was the most sumptuous“celestial city”in the world; other places as Kauli（Korea），Zipangu（Japan），the large province called Thebeth（Tibet）. Most of the toponyms given by 13 th century travelers in their travel accounts, continued to be used in Western cartography until the 16 th century, after new sea routes from Lisbon to China were forged by the Portuguese.

With this context, let's now turn our attention to the maps from the Vatican Library.

In its various manuscript collections（fondi），besides the medieval maps, which are often found in codices of works by Isidore, Macrobius, Mela, Plinius etc., the Vatican Library preserves a remarkable group of modern cartographic documents, which variously consist of single pieces, atlases, or sometimes on sheets inserted inside codices.

1．Circular planisphere annexed to Fra Paolino Minorita's essay De Mapa Mundi（ca.1320）.

This is the most ancient planisphere with modern elements survived today.

Fra Paolino（c.1275-c.1344）was a Franciscan friar. After holding various positions in the Curia, he was created Bishop of Pozzuoli（1324）. In Naples he was an adviser to King Roberto and entered the circle of literati to the court, knowing among others Boccaccio. He is author of historical chronologies and the important Provinciale Ordinis Minorum.

The codex in-folio, of 271 sheets written in two columns, mainly contains（ff.49r-264r）Fra Paolino's historical work known as Satyrica Historia or Speculum, accompanied by marginal drawings and preceded by an index（ff.28r-46v; ff. 47-48 blank）of names and things contained in the main work. The first sheets（1r-28r）include some writings independent from（although tenuously connected to）the main work, i. e., a Tabula Rerum gestarum ab origine mundi usque ad Benedictum XII pontificem, then the essay De mapa mundi cum trifaria Orbis divisione, that is of particular interest, along with some other treatises. In the last sheets（ff.264v-270v）of the codex, along with other designs, there are some maps including this Planisphere. According to Almagià, they are drawn by the same hand that copied the codex, a hand that was not very expert in map drawing.

The planisphere has a diameter of 24.8cm oriented to the South, with coasts in black, water green, mountains in small strips of reddish-brown; inhabited places by a small sign M and names in black. The colors are very faded; some writings can no longer be read with certainty. There are traces of abrasions.

Fra Paolino's essay De Mapa mundi is a short but interesting description of the whole known world. The planisphere represents the Old Continent surrounded by the Ocean. The center is about half way between Jerusalem and the northern end of the Persian Gulf.

In the planisphere East Asia is represented at the upper left. The city of Seres, which is located at the ocean outside, on a large inlet filled with islands, corresponds with Isidore. As in the chapter“De altera divisione Scythiae”（f.17r）of the text of De Mapa mundi, Paolino describes“Moderni Scythiam aliter dividunt ac nominant propter divisionem Tartarorum. Primo enim ponunt regnum Cathay, quod ab oriente habet oceanum, a meridie insulas oceani, ab occidente regnum Tarsae, a septentione desertum debeliam[? ]”，while on the planisphere, among the legends dedicated to this group of indications relevant to“moderni”there are legends as：“incipit regnum cathay”（the Kingdom of Cathay begins）；“hic stat magnus canis”（here stands the Great Khan）；“India posterior Iohannis presbyteri”（lower India of Prester John）.

2．Pietro Vesconte's Circular Planisphere（1320 o 1321）.

Pietro Vesconte is one of the earliest creators of nautical maps, the first professional cartographer to sign and date his works regularly. This is one of the many contemporary planispheres made by the European Church Fathers. They continue a legacy adopted from the ancient world, and were gradually expanded and adapted in accordance with the texts which they accompanied. The commentaries and learned notes added to the texts formed the basis of further alterations to the maps.

This planisphere is currently bound together with 4 other maps, part of which are nautical, and one of them signed by Pietro Vesconte. All of the 5 maps are on parchment sheets folded in half, which measure, about 30.3x47.6cm laying flat.

The planisphere has a diameter of about 27cm oriented with East to the top, showing Jerusalem at the center of the World. The ocean surrounds the known landmass of the world, while the outer parts are largely conjectural. Colors are fairly typical of the medieval period: the oceans, seas and rivers are in green, the saw-tooth mountains in brown, the major cities represented by crowns and castles in red, the landmasses in white. Of the long legends at the four corners of the planisphere, the two at the top regard Asia; the one at the bottom on left, Europe;the one at the bottom on right, Africa.

The planisphere in essence is a nautical map of the Mediterranean world, combined with work of previous types in more remote regions. The shorelines of the countries well known to Italian mariners are very accurately delineated. Chinese and Indian Asia show little trace of the new knowledge imparted by European travelers from the time of Marco Polo.

As the previous map, East Asia is represented at the upper left, with legends as“incipit regnum cathay”（the Kingdom of Cathay begins）；“hic fuerunt inclusi tartari”（here the Tartars were imprisoned）.

3．Borgiano Circular Planisphere（first half of the 15th century）.

This circular planisphere is engraved on two copper plates riveted together to form a circle 63cm in diameter, with color rubbed in the engraved channels（nielli）. The parts, which in the impression appear black, were in the original filled with a melted substance, for the most part brown, but where ship's sails are represented, white, and for flames, red.

It was discovered in an antique shop and bought by Cardinal Stefano Borgia for his museum in Velletri. It seems to have been originally designed as a wall decoration. The orientation is with south at the top. Due to its apparent decorative function, it is not necessary that it conform to the same standard of other maps of its day. The legends are in a quite descriptive style. Towns are represented by castellated symbols, a variety of ship-types can be seen in the circumfluent ocean. The Mongolian invasion is illustrated. Little or no emphasis is given to Jerusalem.

It has rich legends including those describing Asia. In an inlet of the northern ocean there is legend“Mare yrcanicum: vr[? ]”，a remnant of the classical concept that considered the Caspian Sea as a gulf of the Ocean. On the map are decorative figures of tents, wagons for use as homes, men and animals,“Tartaria regio maxima, quam Tartari excurrunt cum suis iumentis et bobus quandiu herbae durant. Civitatem ex multis tentoriis et corutis situant. Hi cum instrumentis comburunt corpora”（Tartary the largest country, which the Tartars traverse with their beasts of burden and cattle as long as there is grass. They construct their towns of many tents. Here they burn the bodies with the implements）. East of the Caspian Sea, at the city called Organti, there is an inscription：“De Organti ad Cathagium vadunt camelli in IIII mensibus”（from Organti to Cathay, camels go in four months）.

At the eastern end, near the outside ocean, encircled by mountains there are the two provinces of Gog and Magog; south of them the legend：“India inferior s. Serica in qua Cathay civitas et Magni Cani imperatoris Tartarorum sedes”（lower India country of Serica in which is the City of Cathay, and the seat of the great Khan, Emperor of the Tartars）；close to that, beneath a symbol of city and legend“C. Cambalec”（the City of Cambalec）；between the two branches of the Ganges, a representation of the two people which are collecting fruit from a tree, with the legend“extremi seres ex arboribus collegentes sericum”（the distant Seres collecting silk from the trees）.

4．Andreas Walsperger's Circular Planisphere（1448）.

Andrea Walsperger is a Benedictine monk from Salzburg, who made this planisphere in Constance, Germany. With a diameter of 57.5cm, the planisphere is surrounded by circles representing the heavenly spheres and the“heaven of crystal. ”

It is oriented to the South. Jerusalem is placed at the center of the world sphere. The earth is surrounded by an ocean except at the far South, at the top of the map, where Africa stretches to the edge of the circle. To the East, left on the chart, where the earthly Paradise is established as a city with towers and walls, are the sources of the rivers of Paradise: Pison, Tigris, Euphrates and Gichon. Africa and Asia are so close that they are separated only by a forked strait. A red dot by each city controlled by Christians; pagan-ruled sites received a black dot. A red dot is found on Taprobana and the island where S. Thomas is thought to be buried, while another one marks the stone tower on the narrow land bridge to East Asia.

As noticed by Almagià, the singularity of this map is that, the whole East Asia is almost separated from the rest of the central western Europe-Asia mass.

This late medieval planisphere represents a transitional type of cartography that was beginning to unfold in Western Europe before the Renaissance that reflects the influence of Claudius Ptolemy's Geography, which appeared after the introduction and translation of this work to Western Europe in early 15th Century.

Legends of late medieval toponyms, as“Qinzai”（行在，today Hangzhou）；“Kataya imperium”；“Tartaria imperium”; and the capital city Sara“Saraa caput Tartarorum ubi imperator moratur”（Saraa, the capital of the Tartars, where the emperor resides）；“Waldach civitas kathay ubi magnum cham moratur”（Waldach, the city of Cathay, where the Great Khan resides）adorn the map. In South and Southeast Asia, there are legends：“Taprobana, ortus piperis”（Taprobana, rose pepper）；“Aurea Chersonesus”（golden peninsula）.

III Western knowledge on East Asia and China in maps of the Age of Discovery

In the 100 years from the mid-15th to the mid-16th century, a combination of circumstances stimulated men to seek new routes. It is not known when the idea originated of sailing westward in order to reach Cathay. After Columbus' first voyage, Spain, Britain, Portugal, and France actively explored the New World.

Henry the Navigator（1394-1460），prince of Portugal, initiated the first great enterprise of the Age of Discovery—the search for a sea route east by south to Cathay. He is noted for his patronage of voyages of discovery among the Madeira Islands and along the western coast of Africa, though he himself never embarked on any exploratory voyages. In 1497 a Portuguese captain, Vasco da Gama, sailed in command of a fleet under instructions to reach Calicut（Kozhikode），on India's west coast, after a magnificent voyage around the Cape of Storms（which he renamed the Cape of Good Hope）and along the unknown coast of East Africa. In 1511 the Portuguese established a base at Malacca, commanding the straits into the China Sea; in 1511 and 1512, the Moluccas, or Spice Islands, and Java were reached; in 1557 the trading port of Macau was founded at the mouth of the Canton River, and for 300 years remained the only Chinese base open to all foreign powers.

While from the route west, the first circumnavigation（1519-1522）led by the Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan with his Spanish fleet made the first European landing in 1521 at the island of Guam and then reached the Philippines, where Magellan was killed in a local quarrel. The survivors sailed on to the Moluccas; thus, sailing westward, they arrived at last in territory already known to the Portuguese sailing eastward.

It is in the 16th century when significant European knowledge of Chinese geography started, after a new sea route from Lisbon to China was made by the Portuguese. Before the arrival of the Portuguese traveler Jorge Alvares（? -1521）in Canton at the end of 1513, East Asia, especially China, was represented in European planispheres and nautical maps with fantasies from the descriptions of Ptolemy and Marco Polo.

Tomé Pires（ca.1465-ca.1540）was a Portuguese apothecary from Lisbon who spent 1512 to 1515 in Malacca immediately after the Portuguese conquest, at a time when Europeans were only first arriving in South East Asia. After his arduous experiences in India and the East Indies, he headed the first official embassy from a European nation in China（Portugal, to the Chinese Zhengde Emperor, during the Ming dynasty），where he died. He wrote in Malacca and India Suma Oriental que trata do Mar Roxo até aos Chins（Summary of the East, from the Red Sea up to the Chinese，《東方諸國記》），the oldest and most extensive description of the Portuguese East, including China, after the“Great Discovery”，calling Beijing in both way, Kanbura（汗八里）and Peqim（北京）. He first used Quamton to indicate Guangzhou. João de Barros（1496-1570），Portuguese historian, in his Décadas da Ásia（1552-1563；“Decades of Asia”），describes 15 Chinese provinces, made the first mention of the Great Wall, and depicted a map of Chinese coast and vast territory inland. However, the confusion regarding names referring to China, among Serica Regio, Sinae, Mangi and Cathay, had to wait to be clarified until 1615 with Matteo Ricci's important work De Christiana expeditione apud Sinas suscepta ab Societate Jesu first published in Augsburg.

The improvement of European knowledge of Chinese and East Asian geography is represented in spectacular manuscript maps of that period, as shown in one of Diego Ribero, preserved in the Vatican Library manuscript collections.

1．Diego Ribero's Planisphere（Siviglia,1529）.

Diego Ribero was a Portuguese（Lusitanian）at Seville in the service of King Charles V of Spain. For many years he was recognized as one of the most expert cosmographers of his time. He was closely associated with all of the noted explorers who gathered about the Spanish court. He was a personal friend of the Pilot Major, Sebastian Cabot; was the royal cosmographer under Ferdinand Columbus; and made the maps that Magellan carried with him on his famous voyage across the Pacific. Ultimately Ribero succeeded Sebastian Cabot as Pilot Major.

This planisphere, entitled at the upper and lower edges“Carta Universal en que Se contiene todo lo que del mondo se ha descubierto fasta agora hizola Diego Ribero cosmographo de Su magestad Año de 1529 en Sevilla. La qual se devide en dos partes conforme ala capitulacion que Hizieron los catholicos Reyes de españa y el Rey don Juan de Portugal en Tordessilas año de 1494”, is one of the most famous cartographic achievements of the Age of Discovery, considered by many scholars the finest cartographic production of its age. It is painted in color on vellum of 84.2x197cm. It actually includes all the known world, and a small strip with“Mare Sinarum”is repeated twice at the two opposite ends. It is delineated with the style of nautical charts.

The two flags of Spain and Portugal in the southeast corner of the map and on the coast of China indicate the location of the Line of Demarcation. The route taken by the famous Magellan expedition in 1519-1520 is marked on Ribero's map by drawings of his first two ships, the Victoria and the Trinidad. The increasingly accurate presentation of Southeast Asia, particularly the Moluccas, is notable. It is also the first European cartographic representation to show Canton（“cantam”marked in red on the map），its environs and the Pescadores Islands. The design of East Asian coast north of the Tropic of Cancer is interrupted. There is no trace of Japan. Regarding Java there is only the northern coast. Some sections of the Indochina coast is missing.

Among the legends on the map are“China”；“cantam”；“Mare Sinarum”;“provincia de maluche. ”

2．Gerolamo da Verrazano's Planisphere（Roma 1529）.

Gerolamo da Verrazano is brother of the famous Florentine navigator Giovanni da Verrazano, who in 1524 started his voyage westward and brought the French flag to North America, and would accompany him in his second expedition in which Giovanni tragically died in one of the Antilles in 1528. This 1529 planisphere was one of the first two maps to show Verrazano's discoveries（the other was Vesconte de Maggiolo's 1527 map in Biblioteca Ambrosiana）.

It is painted in colors on large parchments of 130x260cm. In nautical map style, as its contemporary maps, this planisphere represents all the known world. At the upper edge it's written“Hyeronimus De Verrazano faciebat”. The date of the map is determined by the inscription over the three French flags on the Atlantic coast of North America：“Verrazana sive nova gallia quale discopri 5 anni fa giouanni da uerrazano fiorentino per ordine et Commandamento del Cristianissimo re di Francia”（Verrazana of New Gaul, which was discovered five years ago by Giovanni de Verrazzano, of Florence, by the order of the most Christian King of France）. As Giovanni da Verrazano made his celebrated voyage in 1524, the accepted date of the map is therefore 1529.

The contours of Asia appear complete but the delineation is conjectural for all east and north coasts; the southern coasts of the three peninsulas are represented with considerable care. The peninsula Indocina has a triangle form. There is a figure of Melacca, with legend：“Questa città detta melacca è tratta di tutta la India in la quale e portoghesi tenghano una fortezza ha bonissimo porto nel qual continuo si troua assai naue indiane quale nauigano da oriente a occidente per infine alle region del gattaio”（this city called Melacca is dealing with all India in which the Portuguese take a fortress; it has a very good harbor in which constantly there are many Indian ships which sail from east to west, and to finally the regions of Cathay）；then“Insule di Meluche”; a big island named Burnei with legend:“in questa insula di burnei nascie de ogni sorte spetierie de oro simile et gioe in max. quantità”（in this island of Burnei there are all sorts of spices as well as gold and jewels in maximum amount）.

The east coast of Asia with a protruding peninsula, which is represented in many other maps made before or at the same time; north of it goes into a large bay, where is written：“in questo golfo di canton sta le naue che vengono dindia a queste regioni del gattaio”（in this Canton Bay, there are vessels coming from India to these regions of Cathay）. The northern coast of Asia runs straight from east to west without names. Among legends in inland of Asia：“La Cina”；“Gattaio provincia”；“Serica regio”；“Tangut provincia”；“Sinarum situs”, represent no new knowledge.

3．Anonymous Planisphere（ca.1530）.

This map is on parchment of 146x209cm, has no title, no indication of the author, no date and is somewhat mutilated. It is a map of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. The Indian Ocean is missing but could have been on the other piece of the parchment that is lost today. Several inscriptions which are faded or worn are not readable.

The planisphere is a nautical type, with only coastal place names and few indications inland. At the edge of the map there is legend“Insule Maluche”; some other islands of Philippines today, such as“Medanao”, “Maton”, “Cailon”，“Hunhan”; still other islands as“Ambon”, then“Timor”, “Maluca”, etc. There is a strip of the Chinese coast with the dual inlet of Canton and close to it a dozen other coastal names.

4．Battista Agnese's nautical atlas（Venezia,1542）.

These two maps, one of the Indian Ocean and the other a Planisphere are contained in the atlas which includes 11 maps on parchment, bound in volume with thick wooden laths covered with leather and provided with metal studs for closing. Size approximately 19.5x29.5cm.

The Map of the Indian Ocean includes the Asian coasts of the south and the east until agoa de paneicada（?），with rich coastal toponyms as characteristic of Agnese's nautical maps.

On the planisphere, the continents are colored in green; inland there are some chains of mountains in brown or in gold; few rivers in light blue; some inhabited places marked with houses in red or gold; some regional names and legends. In black it depicts Magellan's expedition with inscriptions as“p. andar ale maluche”；“el tornar de le maluche”; in gold“el uiazo de peru”. For African and Asian coasts Ptolemy elements are used, combined with new knowledge. There is a lack of coastlines for Northern and Eastern Asia. Place names also combined Ptolemy elements as“India intra Gangem fluvium”, with modern names as“uolga siue rha fluvius que[m] tartari adil uoca[n]t”）. Other legends regarding the Far East：“Malacha”；“Malucha insule”；“Sericha Provitia”；“Cataio Provitia”. Knowledge on inland East Asia is still limited.

5．Nautical Atlas, Bartolomé Olives' Laboratory（Messina,1562）.

This atlas is one of the most beautiful nautical cartographic works of the 16th century preserved in the Vatican Library. Bartolomé Olives is a Majorcan cartographer, and from at least 1575 onwards he worked in Messina. He is one of several members of Olives family, who in the sixteenth century and also in the century later dedicated themselves to the cartographic art, in Italy and abroad.

This beautiful atlas contains 14 nautical maps on parchment. Here are two of them: map of East Asian Coasts and of adjacent islands; and a map of the South Asian coasts.

The coast of the continent extends from the mouth of the Ganges river（Rio Ganietico）to c. de canagro at the end of a peninsula（Korea?），in front of which there is a strip of tierra Xicola.

Map of South Asian coasts, from cor（Arabia）to Bengala out of the mouth of the Ganges. On the sea close to Goa, with a legend：“est[e] p°（porto）se llama goa a donde vienen las naos de lisbona”（this harbor called Goa where ships arrive from Lisbon），under that“mare ocidentale yndicum”.

Around the middle of the 16th century, along with the spread of printing techniques, nautical maps began to lose their previously held value; and finally during the 17th century, their use and value declined rapidly.

IV East Asia and China in Ptolemy maps

Claudius Ptolemaeus（Ptolemy, c.90-168 AD）was the greatest figure of the ancient world in the advancement of geography and cartography. He succeeded in establishing the elements and form of scientific cartography, through his great treatise, Geographik Syntaxis（the geographical guide to the making of maps）written c.150. This work remained the standard on geographical theory throughout the Middle Ages, until the 16th century, and constitutes one of the fundamental tenets of modern geodesy.

The Geography was originally written by Ptolemy in Greek at Alexandria around 150 A. D., its translation into Arabic in the 9th century and Latin in 1406 was highly influential on the geographical knowledge and cartographic traditions of the medieval Caliphate and Renaissance Europe.

The Ptolemaic world map is based on the description contained in this book. No original manuscript of this text has survived. It probably originally came with maps but none has been discovered. Instead, the present form of the map was reconstructed from Ptolemy's coordinates by Byzantine monks shortly after 1295.

The surviving maps for Ptolemy's Geography date only from ca.1300 after the text was rediscovered by Maximus Planudes.

The first Latin translation of the text of the Geography was begun by Manuel Chrysoloras of Constantinople（? -1415, Greek scholar who had taught Greek in Florence, then Venice, and at last became an apostolic secretary to Gregory XII），at the end of the 14th century, then around 1406-1407 continued by his student Jacopo Angeli da Scarperia（also known as Jacobus Angelus Florentius, also an apostolic secretary），who translated the title as Cosmographia（instead of Geogrphia by Chrysoloras），the name by which the work was commonly known for the next century, although the earliest manuscripts of Jacopo's translation contain no maps. An early Latin version of the maps, perhaps the earliest, the undated Vat. lat.5698, contains no text, but only the twenty-seven maps, similar to Urb. gr.82, including the fortified cities, and it should be a direct copy, possibly with consultation of another version.

In the 15th century, the Latin manuscript Geography became popular as a display piece, a coffee-table book for very rich people. The first printed Ptolemy atlas was published in Bologna in 1477. Since then until the end of the 16th and the beginning of the 17th century, dozens of editions from over twenty map producers were published. In these maps, East Asia was an area not defined, generally only place names as Seres, Sinae, and Scythia Extra（外斯基泰）were indicated.

The Ptolemy map was used as the standard of geography textbooks for more than a thousand years, until 1569 when Flemish cartographer Gerardus Mercator（1512-1594）began to publish his world atlas.

1．Ptolemy World Map（ca.1300）.

There are two basic versions of Ptolemy map, with the 1st general world map in both: the 1st recension has 26 large special regional maps; the 2nd recension has 64 smaller regional maps and four large additional maps.

The codex Urb. gr.82, which represents the 1st recension, is usually considered the oldest among the 3 earliest surviving text with maps.

In Ptolemy maps, the continents are given as Europe, Asia, and Libya（Africa）. China is divided into two realms—the Sinae and the Serica. Here“Sinae”is indicated at the extreme right, beyond the island of“Taprobane”（Sri Lanka, oversized）and the“Aurea Chersonesus”（Southeast Asia peninsula）.

Manuscript copies made in the thirteenth and the fourteenth centuries, were brought by scholars to Italy from Constantinople at the beginning of the 15th century, and subsequently translated into Latin and widely studied.

2．Ptolemy Oval Planispheres（late 15th century; ca.1530）.

These two illustrations show clearly the improvement of European geograhpic knowledge during less than half century, along with the new discoveries of the Americas, the African coasts, India and the Far East.

The codex Urb. lat.274 is one of the bibliographical treasures in the Vatican Library. It belonged to the bibliophile Pope Alexander VII. This copy is a masterpiece, not only because of the quality of its text and the accuracy of the drawing of the maps, but also because of the materials used-the best quality parchment dyed in a variety of colors, lavish use of gold leaf for the titles and frames, the representation of winds using human faces, and so on. It was made in Florence during the 15th century and consists of 133 parchment folios measuring 44.4x29.9cm and was in round humanist script. Originally it includes 30 maps: a map of the Old World,13 maps of Europe,4 of Africa and 12 of Asia. The maps often cover several pages. In the 16th century, the codex was enlarged with a second map of the world which included the recently discovered continent of America, as seen in the illustration. In addition, there are 3 new maps of modern Spain, Northern Europe, and Modern Italy. The most outstanding of the illustrations in the manuscript is the miniature of Ptolemy within an initial letter on folio 2, dipicting him with a book and a compass in his hand.

By the 16th century, world maps drawn with completely new geographic knowledge were annexed in Ptolemy's Geography. China coast is well depicted extending northward. Interestingly, it seems that more toponyms from Marco Polo were used for describing Asia, es., Cathaio, Mangi, Tangut, Tibet, Quinsay, Zaiton, Cipangu. Molucca islands are also included.

There are more than forty surviving Latin manuscripts of the Geography with maps from the fifteenth century. The numerous Latin manuscripts and early print editions of Ptolemy's Geography, most of them accompanied by maps, attest to the profound impression this work made upon its rediscovery by Renaissance humanists.

V Conclusions

This survey of the maps in the manuscript collections of the Vatican Library covering nearly 400 years provide insight into how Europe's understanding of the world and its understanding of China and East Asia evolved from the Medieval period to the beginning of modern times. We see how over the ages Europe's view（and sometimes confusion）of various places changed and became more accurate. However, Europe had to wait until the 17th century when the Jesuit fathers dispelled this confusion of Europe, brought new and accurate geographic knowledge of China and East Asia, especially of the inland regions. Jesuit maps, beginning with Matteo Ricci's World Map published in China, through Michael Boym's manuscript atlas, to Martino Martini's Novus Atlas Sinensis published in Europe, based on European discoveries of the previous centuries, on Chinese traditional geographic knowledge and on their own inspections and measurements in person, made a bridge for the exchange of knowledge between East and West. It is another chapter in the study of the cartographic history. As part of heritage of humanity, the Vatican Library holdings of the materials continue to contribute to studies and researches to the whole scholarly world.

VI Appendix: Ancient toponyms regarding East Asia used in the article

Acknowledgement

The author would like to express her deep and sincere gratitude to Mr. John Day, scientist and cartographic historian, who with patience and expertise proofread and edited this article.