The shaping of Africa: cosmographic discourse and cartographic science in late medieval and early modern Europe

Abstract

The African puzzle: canon and variations on the medieval ecumene marvels at the southern edge of the world Prester John - the migration of a legend. The limits of symbolic space - from allegorical geometry to a figurative world: displaying Ham's territory the impact of portolan charts from the mirror of the ocean. Charting euclidean space - the cartography of the great discoveries: beyond the Pillars of hercules from mare clausum to mare liberum towards the Indian Ocean and the Red Sea. From the form to the contents - the design of the unknown: ptolemy shifted, and yet the same the mountains of the Moon the great central lake. Conclusions: the projection of the renaissance tradition.