Le Nord : revue internationale des Pays de Nord - 01.06.1944, Qupperneq 337

REVUE LITTÉRAIRE
graphical description. These maps
are the first to mention Greenland.
They also give the position of Ice-
land with approximate, though far
from complete, correctness. Clavius’
work did not, however, become
generally known, and many of the
maps and globes of the succeeding
period, the most famous of which
were made by Italian and Portu-
guese cartographers, do not utilize
his results at all. In contemporary
geographical texts, on the other
hand, mediaeval legends about the
strange and distant island begin to
make their appearance.
As an example of the way in
which an increased knowledge of
the Northern countries, and especi-
ally of Iceland, spread to wider
circles, may be mentioned Olaus
Magnus’ famous work “Carta Mari-
tima,” printed in Venice in 1539,
and the accompanying “Historia de
Gentibus Septentrionalibus,” which
was published in Rome in 1555.
Olaus Magnus was born in Lin-
köping in Sweden in 1490. He
studied at German universities and
later on made journeys to the
northern parts of Sweden and Nor-
way. In Norway he seems to have
met Archbishop Erik Walkendorf,
who probably told him about Ice-
land and Greenland. Later on he
travelled about Europe, and he
spent the last years of his life in
Italy. Olaus Magnus must have col-
lected his information about the
Northern countries through many
and varied channels, from scholars
297
and laymen, Bishops and skippers,
and also from the literature of
earlier ages. His Carta Maritima
pictures Iceland very much as Cla-
vius did, though with certain im-
provements, but his commentaries
contain much new information,
some of it reliable, and some of it
of a fantastic character.
It is, however, not until Icelandic
scholars begin to take up the work
that a real improvement of the
knowledge of Iceland possessed by
Western Europe sets in. The work
of these scholars is a fruit of that
connection between Icelandic schol-
arship and the University of Co-
penhagen which has meant to much
to Iceland; it is also a signal evi-
dence of the rich and original cul-
ture possessed by Iceland, in spite
of the poverty of the country and
its distance from the centres of
European civilization. The most
famous of these Icelandic scholars
is probably Guðbrandur Þorláks-
son, Bishop of Hólar, a highly
gifted, energetic and combative
man, who corresponded with An-
ders Sorensen Vedel and Tycho
Brahe. He is the originator of the
map of Iceland which was publish-
ed in 1590 by Ortelius, and "bor-
rowed” from his Atlas by Mer-
cator and several others in a some-
what modified form. The old maps
of Iceland which still turn up in
second-hand bookshops are general-
ly either those of Ortelius, or —
in most cases — maps derived from
the latter.
Le Nord, 1944, 3-4
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