ABSTRACT
The ocean was depicted in most medieval maps as a narrow undefined band encircling the emerged lands in harmony with the Homeric ‘Oceanus river’. The purely geometrical depiction of the ocean in the early Isidorian mappaemundi appears somewhat more subtly different in the cartographic works belonging to the Orosian family. The issue of possible oceanic navigations around the world during the Middle Ages has been the object of some misunderstanding. The notion of an encircling ocean was generally taken for granted but, under the influence of the Church Fathers, most authors were rather reluctant to commit themselves to the possibility of an actual circumnavigation. Some reminiscence of the Atlantis episode, together with Carthaginian propaganda stressing an unfriendly ocean to preserve their seaborne interests and trade monopoly, may surely have been responsible for all the obstacles in the Atlantic related in the Periplus compiled by Scylax of Caryanda.
