The Fra Mauro Map ad 1459 in The Mediaeval Cartography of Borneo by Robert Nicholl in the Brunei Museum Journal 1980
The Fra Mauro map, made in 1450, is located in the Venice Museum and is huge, 2.4 meters by 2.4 meters. Astonishingly, the area showing Santubong area in amazing correct detail compared to other areas of the Asia. Below, please find an account of this map and its bewildering features. You can see the Frau Moro map on Wikipedia. Readers, how much of the below passage is true?
In A.D. 1806 William Fraser made a facsimile of the Fra Mauro map for the Honourable East India Company. This reproduces the original in all its great exactitude; it is in the Department of Manuscripts of the British library, plate 9 is the South East Asian section of the map and is reproduced by courtesy of the British Library.
Fra Mauro was a Benedictine monk of the Camaldolese Congregation, who lived in the Abbey of San Michele on the island of Murano at Venice. Here he worked as a cartographer from A.D. 1433 to his death in 1491. He was well situated to geographical and cartographical material from the merchants who frequented the greatest ports in Europe. He appears to have produced a considerable number of maps, but this great world map (it measures some six and a half feet in diameter) is undoubtedly his masterpiece. It is not merely the supreme achievement of mediaeval cartography but a work of art in its own right painted in beautiful colours and embellished with delicate vignettes. It is one of the most prized treasures of the Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana in Venice.
Mediaeval maps are normally orientated with the East at the top; somewhat surprisingly Fra Mauro’s is orientated with the South at the top In order to fit the whole of the known world into a great circle, he was compelled to practice some distortions: for instance, Qjava Minor (today’s Java), instead of lying on an east-west axis, was made to “stand up” on a north-south axis, and Oiava Major Borneo) was drawn far too close to the China coast. He used Niccold de’ Count of his travels in South East Asia and quoted freely from it in the scrolls, which information as to the various islands. Plate 10 shows a tracing made of Fra Mauro’s Java the Great oriented towards the North, and when this is compared with the actual coastline on the same scale, his accuracy becomes astonishing. It can only be supposed, that some Italian merchant, who had visited North-West Borneo, had given him a thumbnail sketch of the coast from Tanjong Api to somewhere near the present Kota Kinabalu, and that this formed the basis of his map. Where Java ends, reality tercniiuattd, would have pursued his voyage into the realms of fantasy for in a matter of hours he would have encountered the Japanese coast.
At the southern end of the island, the peninsula terminates in Tanjong and Tanjong Dato. This to the north forms a great bay with a city bearing the inscription /‘This port of the island is called Randan’. The name Randan is not to be found on any map, but its identification presents little difficulty. The letters I and r are readily interchangeable. Randan, therefore, becomes Landan, and so Landa, which is the old spelling, of what is today spelt Landak. It designates the rich auriferous region on the borders of Sarawak’s First division and Kalimantan Barat. There is also a Landak river, but the primary designation is this rich mountainous area, where gold, diamonds, iron and crystal abound. From Fra Mauro’s map, it is clear that the port of Landak was somewhere on the bay formed VY ^anjong Patch in Which case the obvious candidate is the present Santubong, which had been a large and important port in former times. It may well be asked if Landak was its true name or whether it was the anonymous port through which the produce of Landak was exported. Near Tanjong Dato are shown twin islands, and these would be the Turtle Islands, Talang-talang Besar and Talang-talang Kechil, though slightly out of place.
For the Batang Lupar is the inscription: “Throughout the whole of this island the bodies of the dead are cremated”. This is a most interesting inaccuracy for the only inhabitants who practise cremation are the Bidayuh, who inhabit the First ’Division of Sarawak, which is the region surrounding the “Port called Randan”. Until quite recently, they practised this along with other vestigial Hindu rites which sharply differentiated them from their neighbours.
North of this is the inscription Qiava Major, the name of the island. To this, the coast protrudes somewhat, and there is an island. This could signify the Rejang delta, the islands of which would doubtless have been more five centuries ago than they are today. North of this is a city on the coast, which could Odoric’s Paten or Malamasini located in the region of present-day Mukah or it might signify Bintulu, which appears early on Portuguese maps. North of this is another cape, which might be Tanjong Kidurong, and an island, which it is impossible to identify.
On the mainland opposite, there is an inscription: “The island of Java the Great is the host of precious and fertile, in which are powerful kingdoms”. The great promontory above this would be Tanjong Baram, though much exaggerated. The Baran or Telok Usan, is the second largest river on the northwest coast of Borneo, but it has no delta and discharges directly into the sea. As a result of this. fearsome sandbar some distance out to sea, which causes coasting vessels to give it a wide berth. Perhaps because of this Fra Mauro’s informant exaggerated the size of the headland.
Brunei Bay with the island of Labuan, or Tigaon, at its mouth, is unmistakable, and on the shores of the bay stands a prestigious city. This charming vignette is the earliest known portrayal of the city of Brunei, albeit highly imaginative. North of Brunei Bay the coastline projects, and then ends approximately at the present day “Kota Kinabalu. “
Fra Mauro’s map poses a problem: why, when it is so astonishingly accurate otherwise, does it give only one name “the Port called Randan”? Why does it not name the capital, which it portrays so impressively? One can only speculate that the thumb-nail sketch, upon which Java the Great was based, happened to the mislaid before the work was completed. A scroll concerning Giava Minor contains the statement, “when the spices have been harvested, they are sent to Giava Major, from whence they are despatched to various foreign countries. Niccold de’ Conti says that spices garnered in the Moluccas were sent to both Javas. Fra Mauro, however, says that all were finally channelled to Java the Great. Here his informant must have exaggerated, for Malacca conducted a direct trade in spices with the Moluccas. Malacca appears on the west side of the Malay Peninsula as porto chauci over saliaracus, meaning “The Port of Cauchior Saliaracus”. The Italian pronunciation of chauci is “Cauchi”, yet even so, both it and Saliaracus are curious renderings of Malacca, but of the identification there can be little doubt, by reason of the position.
