Mondo Knows Facts
Ptolemy's Geography returned as a printed atlas
A Greek manuscript of coordinates reached Florence in 1400 and reshaped mapmaking Byzantine scholars brought manuscripts of Ptolemy's Geography to Italy, and a Latin translation followed in 1406. Printers issued editions with engraved maps from 1477 onward, giving Renaissance Europe a coordinate grid for the known world. Columbus and others read it, though its circumference figures were too small. It sits in Mondo's history collection, one of 200 facts that each trace back to the reference below.
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Tags: ptolemy, atlases, renaissance
Ptolemy's Geography returned as a printed atlas: the short answers
- Where does this come from, and can I check it?
- A Greek manuscript of coordinates reached Florence in 1400 and reshaped mapmaking. The figure is taken from Library of Congress, which is linked in full on this page. Every fact on Mondo Knows names its source rather than repeating an unsourced claim.
- Is this really a history fact?
- Yes. It sits on the History shelf, one of 2,600 sourced facts grouped into space, animals, the human body, history, science and more. Category pages collect every fact in the same field.
- What else can I read about it?
- The links under the fact point to a quiz, game, puzzle or calculator on the same subject, and the shelf below shows related facts. The wording here is original, and quoted phrases are marked as quotations.