On a wall outside the reading room of the Museo Correr hangs a map of the world. It is not just any map. The oceans are painted cerulean blue, and on their waves travel ships of every nation. On land, the constructions of every culture are shown: cities and towns, castles and arches, mosques and cathedrals, tombs and towers. Moreover it is a map filled with words, the words written  in Veneziano, the Italian dialect of Venice, with beautiful multicolored penmanship. 

The map was created in 1459 by a Venetian monk, who in doing so produced the most advanced description of the world yet seen in Europe–or, perhaps, anywhere else. It was, argues my guest Meredith Small, a key moment, when maps and cartography became a proto-science–something like we understand it today–rather than the expression of cultural and religious concepts, a view now very foreign to us. 

Meredith F. Small is a professor of anthropology at Cornell University. She has previously written Inventing the World: Venice and the Transformation of Western Civilization. Her latest book is Here Begins the Dark Sea: Venice, a Medieval Monk, and the Creation of the Most Accurate Map of the World, and it is the focus of our conversation.

For Further Investigation

For other conversations related to this one, go at once to my conversation with Ioanna Iordanou about the Venetian Secret Service; and my conversation with Catherine Fletcher on the Italian Renaissance. As for mapmaking, this was touched on when Robyn Arianhrod and I talked about the versatile and curious Thomas Hariot.

Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana– the home of Fra Mauro's map

Museo Galileo–Fra Mauro's World Map

The National Library of Australia–"Mapping Our World: From Terra Incognita to Australia"–as video mentioned by Meredith in our conversation, with wonderful details and commentary

San Michele in Isola–the site of Fra Mauro's monastery. While the Venetian congregation of Camaldolese was closed in the early twentieth century, the order of Camaldolese Hermits of Mount Corona continues.