[1] “They draw nowadays the map of the world in a laughable manner, for
    they draw the inhabited earth as a circle; but this is impossible,
    both from what we see and from reason.” (Meteorolog.  Lib. II.
    cap. 5.) Cf. Herodotus, iv. 36.

[2] In Dante’s Cosmography, Jerusalem is the centre of our [Greek: 
    oikoumenae], whilst the Mount of Purgatory occupies the middle of the
    Antipodal hemisphere:—­

      “Come cio sia, se’l vuoi poter pensare,
        Dentro raccolto immagina Sion
        Con questo monte in su la terra stare,
      Si, ch’ ambodue hann’ un solo orrizon
        E diversi emisperi"....
          —­Purg. IV. 67.

[3] The belief, with this latter ground of it, is alluded to in curious
    verses by Jacopo Alighieri, Dante’s son:—­

“E molti gran Profeti Filosofi e Poeti Fanno il colco dell’ Emme Dov’ e Gerusalemme; Se le loro scritture Hanno vere figure: 

      E per la Santa fede
      Cristiana ancor si vede
      Che’ l’ suo principio Cristo
      Nel suo mezzo conquisto
      Per cui prese morte
      E vi pose la sorte.”
          —­(Rime Antiche Toscane, III. 9.)

Though the general meaning of the second couplet is obvious, the expression il colco dell’ Emme, “the couch of the M,” is puzzling.  The best solution that occurs to me is this:  In looking at the world map of Marino Sanudo, noticed on p. 133, as engraved by Bongars in the Gesta Dei per Francos, you find geometrical lines laid down, connecting the N.E., N.W., S.E., and S.W. points, and thus forming a square inscribed in the circular disk of the Earth, with its diagonals passing through the Central Zion.  The eye easily discerns in these a great M inscribed in the circle, with its middle angular point at Jerusalem.  Gervasius of Tilbury (with some confusion in his mind between tropic and equinoxial, like that which Pliny makes in speaking of the Indian Mons Malleus) says that “some are of opinion that the Centre is in the place where the Lord spoke to the woman of Samaria at the well, for there, at the summer solstice, the noonday sun descends perpendicularly into the water of the well, casting no shadow; a thing which the philosophers say occurs at Syene”! (Otia Imperialia, by Liebrecht, p. 1.)

[4] This circumstance does not, however, show in the Vulgate.

[5] “Veggiamo in prima in general la terra
      Come risiede e come il mar la serra.

      Un T dentro ad un O mostra il disegno
        Come in tre parti fu diviso il Mondo,
        E la superiore e il maggior regno
        Che quasi piglia la meta del tondo.

      ASIA chiamata:  il gambo ritto e segno
      Che parte il terzo nome dal secondo
      AFFRICA dico da EUROPA:  il mare
      Mediterran tra esse in mezzo appare.”
          —­La Sfera, di F. Leonardo di Stagio Dati, Lib. iii. st. 11.