Cosmographia, siue, De situ orbis

105쪽

FRANCISCUS RENNER, DE HEILBRON NMELA, POMPONIUS. Cosmographia sive de Situ orbis. l478.

This litile book is the only extant Latin treatise on geography, RSideirona the ge'graphical part oi Pliny's 'Natural History. V The work was composed probably in 43 A. D. It hegins with a briel description Oi the earth,

then gives an oviline of the three continenis, Europe, Asia and Africa. The worid is surrounded by the Ocean, irona whicli stretch out the Four Seas the Caspian, Persian, Arabian, and the Mediterranean. This last, the most important, has no special name; it is called merely 'Our Sea,'' Mare Nostrum. In his method os description Mela dissers ironi his predecessors as wellas frona the modern geographers. Starting out at the Stratis ot Gibraltar hefirst telis about the countries of the fouili Ahore of the Mediterranean, aSthey tollow in order ironi Uest to East: then returning ironi East to Uest, hedescribes the countries north oi the Mediterranean. There are many omiSSion Sin his book: Dacia and Pannonia, ior eXample, are not eVen mentioned, an lno meaSurementS oi distance are given. Most oi the materiat is taken irona Herodotus, whose work was sive hundred years old at that time. The bestportions of the book are the chapters on Spatia and Gaul, whicli Mela. anative of Spatia, linew irona personat observation. His Scant informationabout Britain was derived ironi Caesar and Strabo. His knowledge of Ger many, in Spite of the contemporary Roman conquestS there, waS altogether imperfeci. It Seems that Mela was more interested in the legends of the disserent countries - in stories about the AmazonS, Hyperborean S, and other Such curious creatureS - than in eXaci geographical data. His book was meant ior the layman and not for the student. The first edition Oi 'De situ orbis was printed in 147 I in Milan. The Venice edition by Renner was a reprint oi Mater and Ratdoli's edition. pub-tished also in 1478. During the tollowing years the book was severat times re-edited and reprinted.