ABSTRACT
The Renaissance has no well-defined beginning and end, but overlaps and merges with the earlier and later epochs. The period of late mediaeval monastic cartography coincides with the rebirth of Ptolemy' Geographia. Confronted with Western cartography, Ptolemy's work caused a sensation, not only among scholars, but in all circles interested in science and art. Gerard Mercator himself divided geography into three parts — ancient geography, Ptolemy, and modem geography; and his fine edition of the Geographia, with the original maps re-engraved, was issued in 1578. Contemporary science made its first significant contribution to the Geographia when Guillaume Fillastre incorporated Claudius Clavus' map in his copy of the work, for this was the first "tabula moderna" to be added to the Ptolemaic atlas. In 1466 Donnus Nicolaus Germanus, a German who worked in Florence as cosmographer, illuminator and printer, presented a manuscript Geographia of his making to Borso d'Este, Duke of Ferrara.
