2013/04/01 by Kirsten Andresen Seaver, Kirsten A. Seaver · 1 citation
Social Sciences · #Historical Geography and Cartography
paper · doi:10.1080/00291951.2013.784353
crossref issued 2013/04/01 · crossref published 2013/04/01 · crossref published-print 2013/04/01 · openalex publication_date 2013/04/01 · crossref created 2013/07/09 · crossref deposited 2024/05/14 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/29 · crossref indexed 2026/07/30
Research on early European geographical and historical concepts of the far north, especially as depicted on several tabulae modernae made for Ptolemy's Geographia and on Johann Schöner's 1515 globe, is hampered by inadequate information about the Danish map-maker Claudius Clavus (b. 1388), the first person to draw a map showing Greenland. The article discusses Clavus's background, his knowledge of the region he depicted and described, and his work. His Map of the North, found at Nancy (France) in a 1427 manuscript of Ptolemy's Geographia, has traditionally been associated with two early 16th century manuscripts found in Vienna and with depictions of the far north from the late 15th century onward. Further investigation prompts the conclusion that, contrary to received wisdom, the Nancy work is by Clavus's own hand and not the work of a copyist, while the Vienna manuscripts do not serve to support the long-standing claim that Clavus had authored an expanded account and a post-1427 map, now lost.