World Map, 1482

This is an interesting map from the Geographia di Francesco Berlinghieri which purports to be a modern upgrading of Ptolemy's famous Classical map. It was designed before the Portuguese had discovered that Africa could be rounded at the Cape of Good Hope and of course does not know of the existence of the Americas. Ptolemy had miscalculated the size of planet earth and nearly all the missing third of the world's miscalculated size would be filled up with Ocean and the Americas. The Pacific region is not even shown on the map and the Indian Ocean is shown as being an inland sea - much like the Mediterranean. The author believes that there is a huge continent to the south and that it is contiguous to the African continent. This map neatly shows that no European even knew of the Pacific region's existence in 1482.