ABSTRACT
The world maps made by the Church Fathers were a legacy taken over from the ancient world, and they were gradually expanded and adapted in accordance with the texts which they accompanied. The developments seen in Arab maps and charts influenced the world maps which were produced in monasteries and cartographic workshops. Petrus Vesconte produced chiefly sea-charts, and his world map betrays his experience in that field. A Venetian cartographer, Andrea Bianco, added a world map to his atlas of sea-charts. The fabulous details that marked maps of the early Middle Ages began to disappear. An example of this new kind of map is that produced at Constance in 1448 by Andreas Walsperger, a Benedictine monk who came from Salzburg. The map does mark an advance on other examples of monastic cartography. The over-abundance of detail in Fra Mauro's map is a blemish, since the important and accurately drawn geographical features are inextricably mixed with superficial data based on hearsay.
