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Ben Olshin's article on the Rossi maps in Terrae Incognitae (2007) is
long, meticulous and the most detailed and also essentially the only serious
examination since Bagrow's essay in Imago Mundi (1948). Olshin reserved
final judgment because as he rightly pointed argued there were too many
unresolved issues that require further research/study though since 2007 there
has
been some carbon-14 testing.
I once remarked to a high-level Library of Congress official that
Menzies could have had a field day with these maps and I suspect that the
"hush
hush" policy was maintained there for a time about the Rossi map after
2002 in the hope that the Menzies mania would "blow over" which it did.
However, these maps (even if genuine) would not have supported
Menzies' core claim about the Imperial Fleet voyages toward Africa. Plus it
is
now definitely clear that they do not date to the time of Marco Polo but
could still be copies of maps from that time. But again here is problem of
postulating the existence of a map for there is no surviving example of it
per se. That is the problem with the so-called Galvao map upon which Menzies
based his claim of a dissemination of geographical knowledge in the 1430s
from China to Venice and then Portugal via Nicolo Conti. It is all
quicksand, nothing solid and if it had been true, the Portuguese maritime
history
would have been quite different in the 1400s.
In sharp contrast, I give you only cherry-cartographic evidence -- 18
pre-Magellan (8 being pre-Balboa) maps, globes. globe gores of
unimpeachable authenticity showing a southern water passage and/or a western
coast for
South America in Table A of my book The Magellan Myth: Reelections on Col
umbus, Vespucci and the Waldseemueller Map of 1507 plus extensive written
documentation which leaves no doubt that Ringmann, Ludd, Waldseemueller,
Heinrich Loritti (Glareanus), Schoener, Beheim and of course Magellan himself
were convinced that a Strait/Cape was known and at least one Portuguese
circumnavigation had been achieved no later than 1506.
That said, returning to the Rossi maps, empirical Chinese knowledge of
Alaska/western coast of Canada prior to 1500 is possible.
But if one proved that fact with 100 percent certainty, what
difference would it make? Nice to know for sure but that is also true about
the
Vikings in Newfoundland. The Chinese and Viking explorations amount to
episodic or even idiosyncratic exploration that had no long-term consequences
of any significance.
In any case, there is nothing to prevent the more rabid Chinese
nationalists from hyping the Rossi maps for PR purposes right now regardless
of
further research.
Setting that kind of politics to the side, what I do still find
intriguing after it being brought to my attention by a map dealer based in
Doylestown (PA) is Ortelius' uncanny depiction of the Bering Sea in a world
map
from the late 1580s. Just a fluke depiction made for another reason as
Nebenzahl claims? Or a hint of some solid empirical knowledge that came or
trickled into Europe from the Far East in the 1500s?
In any case, I come back again to the historically pivotal nature of
European exploration of the New World beginning with Columbus in 1492 --
which evidently remains a bitter pill to swallow for many non-Europeans who do
not like to admit the primacy of Europe for roughly the next 450 years.
I have all the cherry evidence both cartographic and non-cartographic
evidence. that sets the record straight as to how much faster the Europeans
(including Columbus before this death in 1506) to connecting the
geographical dots to reach a fairly accurate sense of the physical
configuration of
the New World, especially South America.
This I believe I have proven and that no person can counter my
scholarship or prevail in a a debate with me.
Peter Dickson
Arlington, Virginia
703-243-6641
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