A Mapmaker's Dream

A Mapmaker’s Dream, by James Cowan, is about Fra Mauro, a monk who lived in medieval times trying to make a perfect map of the world, without traveling. Since he is a monk, Mauro had to stay in his monastery for religious reasons. Travelers come visit Mauro and tell their accounts of traveling, which Mauro keeps into account. In this book, map-making comes up a lot, as well as monastic education. This book accurately portrays Fra Mauro’s map making, making the last greatest circle medieval map, and the acquisition of monastic education.
The portrayal of Fra Mauro’s map-making is accurately shown. In the book, Mauro meets a lot of people as they tell him their stories of adventures. “As I suspected, an emissary from the Vatican has come ashore

Fra Mauro is a monk, which means he is very religious and lives for God. “My problem is that I have always been afraid of making such a journey, probably because my bones would renounce me as an imposter!” (3). Mauro wanted to travel, but through monastic education, he learned not to because he lived for God. If he had traveled that meant that Mauro would not be living only and just for God, as monks do. Furthermore, Mauro also talks about the holy place. “All my training as a monk has led me to believe that this really is the capital of the world” (11). He talks about his training in monasteries, how it has shaped him as a person. The capital of the world for him was where the holy place was, and monastic education has taught him that there was a big religious place in the world. The acquisition of monastic is accurately displayed according to Medieval Realms, written by Alex Wolf, monks learned how to live under god through monastic education. Monastic education is shown in the book when Fra Mauro does not want to travel, for fear that he would upset God. Similarly, in the book A Life for God: The Medieval Monastery, by William Lace, the main piece that all monks lived under was something called the Benedictine rule. This rule mapped out the work and pray for an everyday monk. For Fra Mauro, he had times where he focused on his map-making, which was his work, but also

Mauro is a monk who created a wondrous map without traveling outside his cell. Many travelers came and told their stories of adventures to Mauro, in which he used to create his map. For instance, an emissary that was from Vatican came to tell him that he had documents that could help him with his research. “News has reached His Holiness the Pope of my project, and accordingly he has instructed his archivists to make available certain documents he felt might prove to be of value in my research” (64). The Pope learned what Mauro was doing, and accepted it as a second job other than living for god. He was gonna get documents that would help Mauro create his map. William Lace, author of The Medieval Monastery, wrote that the monks gave their lives to God, but also created many world wonders during medieval times. For example, Fra Mauro created a medieval world map, without even traveling out of his own cell in the monastery. Also, Fra Mauro uses other people’s accounts of their travels for his study of cartography, while monks used other people’s work in order to study what they were interested in. Another thing is that Monks learned how to translate writings from other cultures/languages. They translated scripts to vernacular so it was easier for people to read. Fra Mauro when encountering people also translated works from other places, one being a piece of Turkish