Geography, Cartography and Nautical Science in the Renaissance The Impact of the Great Discoveries

About this book

The transformation of the medieval European image of the world in the period following the Great Discoveries of the 15th and 16th centuries is the subject of this volume. The first studies deal specifically with the emergence of the concept of the terraqueous globe. In the following pieces Dr Randles looks at the advances in Portuguese navigation and cartography that helped sailors overcome the obstacles to the circumnavigation of Africa and the crossing of the Atlantic, and at the impact of the Discoveries on European culture and science. Other articles are concerned with Portuguese naval artillery, and with attempts to classify the indigenous societies of the newly-discovered lands and to map the interior of Africa.

Contents

Preface; Classical models of world geography and their transformation following the discovery of America; The Atlantic in European cartography and culture from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance; The alleged nautical school founded in the 15th century at Sagres by Prince Henry of Portugal called `the Navigator'; The emergence of nautical astronomy in Portugal in the 15th century; The recovery of Ptolemy's Geography in Renaissance Italy and its impact in Spain and Portugal in the period of the Discoveries; From the Mediterranean portulan chart to the marine world chart of the Great Discoveries: the crisis in cartography in the 16th century; Bartolomeu Dias and the discovery of the south-east passage linking the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean; La configuration cartographique du continent africain avant et apr#s le voyage de Bartolomeu Dias: hypoth#ses et enseignements; The evaluation of Colombus' `India' project by Portuguese and Spanish cosmographers in the light of the geographical science of the period; La cartographie de l'Atlantique # la veille du voyage de Christophe Colomb

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