Free 1434 by Gavin Menzies Page A

far larger than it was.
    The opposite wall is divided by the door into the Sala del Filosofi. To the left of the door is a map of central Asia from Crete to Tibet—the former trading empire of Byzantium. To the right is a map of the world from Arabia across the Pacific to California. India and the Indies, China, Japan, the Pacific, and North America from Alaska to California are depicted with general accuracy. Other maps show the Northeast Passage from the Faeroes to the rivers of Siberia; North and South America; the Red Sea and Arabia; the Atlantic coast of North America to 55° N, and central Asia. The whole world is there save for southern Australia.
    Of greatest interest is the world map showing the Pacific and North America. There are two roundels on this map: one describes the part that Marco Polo played in gathering the information; the other recounts the role played by Niccolò da Conti. These are the world maps that Dom Pedro was given during his state visit to Venice between the fifth and twenty-second of April 1428. A host of Venetian records describes that visit: Les Chronique Venetienne: The Diaries of Antonio Morosone from 1416 – 1433; the manuscript Zorsi delfine. An extensive bibliography exists in F. M. Rogers’s marvelous book The Travels of the Infante, Dom Pedro of Portugal .
    There are no material differences among the various accounts, which Professor Rogers summarizes: “In March of 1428, Mario Dandolo, the Venetian Ambassador to the King of Hungary, reported that the Infante Don Pedro had left for Venice. The Doge (Francesco Foscari) and the Council decided to receive the Portuguese prince and his companions in regal fashion as their guests and at their expense…. the Doge received Dom Pedro on board the Bucintoro (royal barge).”
    Of the gifts bestowed upon Dom Pedro during his visit to Venice, Professor Rogers cites several accounts, 17 the first by the celebrated historian Antonio Galvão:
    In the year 1428 it is written that Dom Peter [Pedro], the King of Portugal’s eldest son, was a great traveller. He went into England, France, Alamaine, from thence into the Holy Land and to other places; and came home by Italy, taking Rome and Venice in his way; from whence he brought a map of the world which had all the parts of the world and earth described. The streight [ sic ] of Magellan was called in it the Dragon’s Tail; the Cape of Bona SperanÇa [Good Hope], the forefront of Afrike and so forth of other places; by which map, Dom Henry, the King’s third sonne was much helped and furthered into his discoveries….
    It was told me by Francis de Souza Tavares that in the year 1528 Dom Fernando, the King’s son and heir, did show him a map which was found in the study of the Alcobaza which had been made one hundred and twenty years before [1408] which map did set forth all the navigation of the East Indies with the Cape of Boa Esperanza as our later maps have described it; whereby it appeareth that in ancient times there was as much or more discovered than now there is. ( Tratado Dos Diversos e Desayados Caminhos, Lisbon, 1563).
    Further corroboration is provided by Professor Rogers: “In early 1502 in Lisbon the famous German printer Valentin Fernandes published a beautiful volume of the Indies of the East [China]…. He included Portuguese translations of the Indies based on information gathered in Florence from Nicolo da Conti and delegates to the Council [presided over by Eugenius IV] and included in Book IV of his treatise De Variaetate Fortunae .” Later Professor Rogers writes:
    In the second part of his lengthy introduction to Marco Polo, Valentin Fernandes makes the following statement pregnant with meaning from several points of view: “Concerning this matter I heard…that the Venetians had hidden the present book for many years in their Treasure House. And at the time that the Infante Don Pedro of glorious memory, your