Here Begins the Dark Sea: Venice, a Medieval Monk, and the Creation of the Most Accurate Map in the World

This is anthropologist Small’s (Cornell Univ.) second book on late medieval Venice. The first, Inventing the World, tied together Venice’s unique social structure and the wealth of inventions that sprang from its inhabitants’ fertile minds. This book focuses on one artifact: the astonishing world map that Camaldolese monk Fra Mauro completed in 1459 under commission from the King of Portugal. It was not only big (at seven feet wide) but also, given the limitations of European travel at the time, an astonishingly accurate, stunning work of cartography that was an encyclopedia too. The hundreds of notations inscribed on it offered valuable information for travelers and merchants. While Mauro’s Africa may be misshapen, it shows a continent that could be circumnavigated to reach Asia; this had never been represented on a Western map. Small provides a history of mapmaking and speculates on why readers find them fascinating; she asserts it’s the combination of beauty and practicality that’s magnetizing. Except for Prester John, the book omits most carryovers from biblical and classical myths.