73. The art of engraving figures on plates of copper was nearly coëval with that of printing, and is due either to Thomas Finiguerra about 1460, or to some German about the same time. It was not a difficult step to apply this invention to the representation of geographical maps; and this we owe to Arnold Buckinck, an associate of the printer Sweynheim. His edition of Ptolemy’s geography appeared at Rome in 1478. These maps are traced from those of Agathodæmon in the fifth century; and it has been thought that Buckinck profited by the hints of Donis, a German monk, who himself gave two editions of Ptolemy not long afterwards at Ulm.[400] The fifteenth century had already witnessed an increasing attention to geographical delineations. The libraries of Italy contain several unpublished maps, of which that by Fra Mauro, a monk of the order of Camaldoli, in the convent of Murano, near Venice, is the most celebrated. It is still preserved there, and is said to attest the cosmographical science of its delineator, such as he could derive from Ptolemy, and from the astronomy of his own age.[401] Two causes, besides the increase of commerce, and the gradual accumulation of knowledge, had principally turned the thoughts of many towards the figure of the earth on which they trod. Two translations, one of them by Emanuel Chrysoloras, had been made early in the century, from the cosmography of Ptolemy; and from his maps the geographers of Italy had learned the use of parallels and meridians, which might a little, though inadequately, restrain their arbitrary admeasurements of different countries.[402] But the real discoveries of the Portuguese on the coast of Africa, under the patronage of Don Henry, were of far greater importance in stimulating and directing enterprise. In the academy founded by that illustrious prince, nautical charts were first delineated in a method more useful to the pilot, by projecting the meridians in parallel right lines,[403] instead of curves on the surface of the sphere. This first step in hydrographical science entitles Don Henry to the name of its founder. And though these early maps and charts of the fifteenth century are to us but a chaos of error and confusion, it was on them that the patient eye of Columbus had rested through long hours of meditation, while strenuous hope and unsubdued doubt were struggling in his soul. [400] Biogr. Univ. Buckinck, Donis. [401] Andrès, ix. 88. Corniani, iii. 162. [402] Andrès, 86. [403] Id. 83. SECT. V. 1480-1490. _Great Progress of Learning in Italy--Italian Poetry--Pulci--Metaphysical Theology--Ficinus--Picus of Mirandola--Learning in Germany--Early European Drama--Alberti and Leonardo da Vinci._ |Greek printed in Italy.|