Fra A friar is a member of one of the mendicant orders founded in the twelfth or thirteenth century; the term distinguishes the mendicants' itinerant apostolic character, exercised broadly under the jurisdiction of a superior general, from the o ...

Mauro, O.S.B. Cam., (c.1400–1464) was a

Venetian Venetian often means from or related to: * Venice, a city in Italy * Veneto, a region of Italy * Republic of Venice (697–1797), a historical nation in that area Venetian and the like may also refer to: * Venetian language, a Romance language s ...

cartographer who lived in the

Republic of Venice The Republic of Venice ( vec, Repùblega de Venèsia) or Venetian Republic ( vec, Repùblega Vèneta, links=no), traditionally known as La Serenissima ( en, Most Serene Republic of Venice, italics=yes; vec, Serenìsima Repùblega de Venèsia ...

. He created the most detailed and accurate map of the world up until that time, the Fra Mauro map. Mauro was a

monk A monk (, from el, μοναχός, ''monachos'', "single, solitary" via Latin ) is a person who practices religious asceticism by monastic living, either alone or with any number of other monks. A monk may be a person who decides to dedic ...

of the

Camaldolese The Camaldolese Hermits of Mount Corona ( la, Congregatio Eremitarum Camaldulensium Montis Coronae), commonly called Camaldolese is a monastic order of Pontifical Right for men founded by Saint Romuald. Their name is derived from the Holy Hermita ...

Monastery of St. Michael, located on the island of

Murano Murano is a series of islands linked by bridges in the Venetian Lagoon, northern Italy. It lies about north of Venice and measures about across with a population of just over 5,000 (2004 figures). It is famous for its glass making. It was on ...

in the Venetian Lagoon. It was there that he maintained a cartography workshop. He also was employed by some very powerful men like Prince

Henry the Navigator ''Dom'' Henrique of Portugal, Duke of Viseu (4 March 1394 – 13 November 1460), better known as Prince Henry the Navigator ( pt, Infante Dom Henrique, o Navegador), was a central figure in the early days of the Portuguese Empire and in the 15t ...

Biography

Fra Mauro was born before or around the year 1400. In his youth, Mauro had traveled extensively as a merchant and a soldier. He was familiar with the Middle East. He is recorded in the records of the Monastery of St. Michael from 1409. As a lay member of the monastery, Mauro was employed as mapmaker. In the records of the monastery his main job was recorded as collecting the monastery's rents, but from the 1450s he is also mentioned as the creator of a series of world maps. Although he was no longer free to travel, due to his religious status, he would frequently consult with merchants of the city upon their return from overseas voyages. By 1450 he composed a great ''mappa mundi'' – a world map – with surprising accuracy, including extensive written comments reflecting the geographic knowledge of his time. The map is known today as the " Fra Mauro map".

The Fra Mauro world map

The Fra Mauro world map, or mappa mundi, was a major cartographical work that compiled much of the geographical knowledge of the time. The map covers over five square meters. The map is extremely detailed and contains many thousands of texts and illustrations. The world map took several years to complete and was the most detailed and accurate world map that had been produced up until that time. Fra Mauro created the map under a commission by King

Afonso V of Portugal Afonso V () (15 January 1432 – 28 August 1481), known by the sobriquet the African (), was King of Portugal from 1438 until his death in 1481, with a brief interruption in 1477. His sobriquet refers to his military conquests in Northern Afri ...

Andrea Bianco The Bianco World Map is a map created by ''Andrea Bianco'', a 15th-century Venetian sailor and cartographer. This map was a part of a nautical atlas including ten pages made of vellum (each measuring 26 × 38 cm). These vellum pages we ...

, a sailor-cartographer, is recorded as having collaborated with Fra Mauro in creating the map, as payments made to him between 1448 and 1459 testify. The map was completed on 24 April 1459, and sent to

Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic ( pt, República Portuguesa, links=yes ), is a country whose mainland is located on the Iberian Peninsula of Southwestern Europe, and whose territory also includes the Atlantic archipelagos of th ...

, but that copy did not survive. Along with the map was a letter from the

Doge of Venice The Doge of Venice ( ; vec, Doxe de Venexia ; it, Doge di Venezia ; all derived from Latin ', "military leader"), sometimes translated as Duke (compare the Italian '), was the chief magistrate and leader of the Republic of Venice between 726 ...

. It was intended for

Prince Henry the Navigator ''Dom'' Henrique of Portugal, Duke of Viseu (4 March 1394 – 13 November 1460), better known as Prince Henry the Navigator ( pt, Infante Dom Henrique, o Navegador), was a central figure in the early days of the Portuguese Empire and in the 15t ...

, Afonso V's uncle. It encouraged the prince to continue funding exploratory journeys. Fra Mauro died the following year, while he was making a copy of the map for the Signoria of Venice. The copy was completed by Andrea Bianco. A commemorative medal of the period struck in honor of his cartographic work describes Fra Mauro as "chosmographus incomparabilis".

Other work

Two copies of maps by Fra Mauro are known to survive. One is a

portolan chart Portolan charts are nautical charts, first made in the 13th century in the Mediterranean basin and later expanded to include other regions. The word ''portolan'' comes from the Italian ''portulano'', meaning "related to ports or harbors", and wh ...

in the

Vatican Library The Vatican Apostolic Library ( la, Bibliotheca Apostolica Vaticana, it, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana), more commonly known as the Vatican Library or informally as the Vat, is the library of the Holy See, located in Vatican City. Formally es ...

, ( Codice Borgiano V) published by Roberto Almagià in 1944. The other was recognized by Antonio Ratti as a copy signed by Giorgio Callapoda at Candia and dated 1541, of a lost chart by Fra Mauro, sold at auction in Milan in 1984 and now in a private collection, probably in France.Antonio Ratti, " A Lost Map of Fra Mauro Found in a Sixteenth Century Copy" ''Imago Mundi'' 40 (1988), pp. 77–85.

Tributes

The crater Fra Mauro and associated

Fra Mauro formation The Fra Mauro formation (or Fra Mauro Highlands) is a formation on the near side of Earth's Moon that served as the landing site for the American Apollo 14 mission in 1971. It is named after the 80-kilometer-diameter crater Fra Mauro, locat ...

of the

Moon The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It is the fifth largest satellite in the Solar System and the largest and most massive relative to its parent planet, with a diameter about one-quarter that of Earth (comparable to the width of ...

are named after him. The

Apollo 13 Apollo 13 (April 1117, 1970) was the seventh crewed mission in the Apollo space program and the third meant to land on the Moon. The craft was launched from Kennedy Space Center on April 11, 1970, but the lunar landing was aborted aft ...

lunar mission was intended to explore the Fra Mauro formation, but – due to the explosion aboard the spacecraft – Apollo 13's crew had to return to Earth without landing on the Moon. The formation was instead explored by

astronaut An astronaut (from the Ancient Greek (), meaning 'star', and (), meaning 'sailor') is a person trained, equipped, and deployed by a human spaceflight program to serve as a commander or crew member aboard a spacecraft. Although generally r ...

Alan Shepard Alan Bartlett Shepard Jr. (November 18, 1923 – July 21, 1998) was an American astronaut, naval aviator, test pilot, and businessman. In 1961, he became the second person and the first American to travel into space and, in 1971, he beca ...

and

Edgar Mitchell Edgar Dean Mitchell (September 17, 1930 – February 4, 2016) was a United States Navy officer and aviator, test pilot, aeronautical engineer, ufologist, and NASA astronaut. As the Lunar Module Pilot of Apollo 14 in 1971 he spent nine ...

of the

Apollo 14 Apollo 14 (January 31, 1971February 9, 1971) was the eighth crewed mission in the United States Apollo program, the third to land on the Moon, and the first to land in the lunar highlands. It was the last of the " H missions", landings at ...

mission in February 1971.

Bibliography

Cattaneo, Angelo, Il mappamondo di Fra Mauro. Venezia, 1450. San Domenico di Fiesole (Fi), European University Institute, Department of History and Civilization, 2005. Supervisor: Diogo Ramada Curto (EUI); Marica Milanesi (Università di Pavia). Examiners: Patrick Gautier Dalché (IRHT, CNRS, Paris); Anthony Molho (EUI). Cattaneo, Angelo, Fra Mauro's Mappa mundi and Fifteenth-Century Venice. Turnhout: Brepols Publishers (Series "Terrarum Orbis" directed by P. Gautier Dalché), 2011 []. Cattaneo, Angelo, "Migrations et métamorphose des formes et savoirs dans la cartographie œcuménique. Europe - Asie, XIIIe-XVIIe siècle", in Besse, Jean-Marc et Tiberghien, Guy (eds), Opérations cartographiques. Arles, Actes Sud, 2016, pp. 234–259 []. Cattaneo, Angelo, "Dal mappamondo di San Michele al mappamondo di Fra Mauro", in Bouloux, Nathalie; Dan, Anca; Tolias, George (eds), Orbis discipline. Liber amicorum Patrick Gautier Dalché. Turnhout: Brepols, 2016, pp. 713–728. []. Cattaneo, Angelo; "European Medieval and Renaissance Cosmography: A Story of Multiple Voices", Asian Review of World Histories - The Official Journal of The Asian Association of World Historians, Vol. 4, Issue 1 (January 2016), pp. 35–81. nline ISSN 2287-9811 – Print ISSN 2287-965X- DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.12773/arwh.2016.4.1.035 Cattaneo, Angelo (con Nanetti, Andrea; Siew Ann Cheong; Chin-Yew Lin), "Maps as Knowledge Aggregators: from Renaissance Italy Fra Mauro to Web Search Engines", The Cartographic Journal, Vol. 52, Issue 2 (2015), pp. 159–167. rint ISSN: 0008-7041 Online ISSN: 1743-2774 http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00087041.2015.1119472 Cattaneo, Angelo; "Scomparsa e ricomparsa di un autore: storiografia religiosa, forme della dimenticanza, percorsi della memoria", in Caby, Cécile; Licciardello, Pierluigi (eds), Camaldoli e l’Ordine camaldolese dalle origini alla fine del XV secolo. Atti del I Convegno internazionale di studi in occasione del millenario di Camaldoli (1012-2012). Monastero di Camaldoli, 31 maggio - 2 giugno 2012. Cesena: Centro storico benedettino italiano, 2014 (Serie Italia benedettina), pp. 485–522 []. Cattaneo, Angelo; "Orb and Sceptre: Cosmography and World Cartography in Portugal and Italian Cities in the Fifteenth Century", Archives Internationales d'Histoire des Sciences 59.2 (2009). Special issue: Early Modern Cosmography, edited by Sven Dupré and Frédéric Hallyn, pp. 531–555 SSN 0003-9810 - OCLC 1482110 - Cattaneo, Angelo; "Fra Mauro camaldolese" in Valerio, Vladimiro (ed.), Cartografi veneti. Mappe, uomini e istituzioni per l’immagine e il governo del territorio. Padova: Editoriale Programma, 2007, pp. 233–237 []. Cattaneo, Angelo; "Letture e lettori della Geografia di Tolomeo a Venezia intorno alla metà del Quattrocento", Geographia Antiqua 4-5 (2005), pp. 41–65 [ISSN 1121-8940]. Cattaneo, Angelo; "Scritture di viaggio e scrittura cartografica. La mappamundi di Fra Mauro e i racconti di Marco Polo e Niccolò de' Conti", Itineraria 3-4 (2005), pp. 157–202 SSN 1594-1019 Cattaneo, Angelo; "Fra Mauro Cosmographus Incomparabilis and His Mappamundi: Documents, Sources, and Protocols for Mapping", in Curto Ramada, Diogo; Cattaneo, Angelo; Ferrand Almeida, André (eds), La cartografia europea tra primo Rinascimento e fine dell´Illuminismo. Firenze: L.S. Olschki, 2003, pp. 19–48 []. Cattaneo, Angelo; "God in His World. Leonardo Bellini Illuminator of the Earthly Paradise in Fra Mauro’s Mappamundi", Imago Mundi 55 (2003), pp. 97–102 [ISSN 0308-5694 – eISSN 1479-7801].

Notes

*Novel ''A Mapmaker's Dream. The meditations of Fra Mauro, cartographer to the Court of Venice.'' by James Cowan. Shambala publications USA. {{DEFAULTSORT:Mauro, Fra Year of birth missing 1460 deaths Camaldolese Order 15th-century Italian cartographers Italian Benedictines Benedictine scholars 15th-century Italian Christian monks Republic of Venice scientists 15th-century Venetian people Medieval geographers