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Preserving A 15th Century Mappa Mundi
Rare 18th Century Italian facsimile example of Fra. Mauro's 9 sheet World Map, originally done in 1450.
Oriented with East at the top, Fra Mauro's pre-Columbian World map is considered the greatest memorial of medieval cartography. The map is believed to have been made around 1450 by the Venetian monk Fra Mauro. It is a circular planisphere drawn on parchment and set in a wooden frame, about two meters in diameter. A copy of the world map was made by Fra Mauro and his assistant Andrea Bianco, a sailor-cartographer, under a commission by King Afonso V of Portugal. This copy was completed on April 24, 1459, and sent to Portugal, but did not survive to the present day.
The original Mauro map was discovered in the monastery of San Michel in Isola, Murano, where the Camaldolese cartographer had his studio. The map now hangs in a stairway in the Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana in Venice, but is visible by entering in the Museo Correr, where it is accessible from the easternmost room upon request to the museum attendants there.
This Italian 18th Century edition of the map is one of the few extent early facsimiles of early world maps and is very rare on the market.
