The Chronicle of the Discovery and Conquest of Guinea. Vol. IIZurara, Gomes Eannes de
History
The Chronicle of the Discovery and Conquest of Guinea. Vol. II
Zurara, Gomes Eannes de
Guinea (Region) -- Discovery and exploration -- Early works to 1800
It was this notable school, therefore, which prepared the great body of
geographical learning which we note appearing in the famous congress of
Portuguese and Spanish geographers at Badajoz in 1524 and 1525: at
which, in the discussion which took place on the demarcation of the
Moluccas and on the size of the world, Aristotle was quoted along with
Strabo, Eratosthenes, Macrobius, St. Ambrose, Pliny, Theodosius, Marinus
of Tyre, Alfergani, and Pierre d'Ailly, etc.]--S.
Long as this note is, a word must be added to it:--
Santarem here covers a large part of the field of mediæval geography,
but his treatment in this place is hardly so clear or exhaustive as one
might expect from the author of the _Essai sur Cosmographie_, or the
compiler of the leading _Atlas_ of mediæval maps. As to the immediate
subject, the phrase _Mediterranean_ [_Sea_] was first used in the sense
of a proper name by St. Isidore of Seville, _c._ A.D. 600 (_Origins_ or
_Etymologies_, Book xiii); though its adjectival use, like the parallel
expressions "Our [sea]," "the Roman [sea]," "the Inner [sea]," was of
course much earlier. As late as Solinus (_c._ A.D. 230) this last is
clearly the only shade of meaning. As to the commerce of North Africa,
we must refer to the Introduction to vol. ii, pp. xxii-xxvi, xlv-lvi,
lxiv. As to the mediæval _Mirabilia_, it is strange that Santarem gives
no adequate reference to the great sources of these collections: Pliny's
_Natural History_, and above all Solinus' _Collectanea_, principally
compiled from Pliny, Mela, and Varro, and itself reproduced (wholly or
partially) in well-nigh every mediæval work of similar character,
translated into the pictorial language of Mappemonde, such as that of
_Hereford_, of _Ebstorp_, or of the _Psalter_ (Brit. Mus. _Add. MSS._
28,681). On these, see _Dawn of Modern Geography_, pp. 243-273, 327-391.
Santarem's remarks hardly give a sufficient idea of the systematic
domination exercised over much of mediæval thought, not only in
geography, natural history and ethnology, but in other departments also
by the pseudo-science represented in these _Mirabilia_.]
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