Claudius Ptolemaeus; Giovanni Antonio Magini — Geographiae universae tum veteris, tum novae (1597)

Marinus is criticized by Ptolemy first because he placed the Sachalite Gulf to the West of the Syagrum promontory, whereas he asserts it is rather to the East along with the Sachalite Arabia region, as he understood from many sailing through those places. The Syagrum promontory is today called Ras Algate, that is, the Head of Algate, and the Sachalite Gulf does not curve as much as Ptolemy describes: and that shore from Ras Algate to the Persian Gulf recedes toward the summer sunset northwest.

Secondly, Marinus is criticized by Ptolemy because he placed the emporium and promontory of Symilla further West not only than the Maleo promontory but also than the Indus river, when it should have been placed further South. I believe Ptolemy means to understand that the Symilla promontory is placed by Marinus further West, that is, before the Maleo promontory; one would first find the Symilla promontory, then the Indus river, and afterwards the Maleo promontory according to the description of Marinus. Otherwise, the position of Marinus will not differ from the Ptolemaic one, for Ptolemy himself also places the Symilla emporium in a meridian further West than is the meridian of the Maleo promontory, and than is the meridian of the Indus river. Indeed, the recent description of this part differs quite a bit from the Ptolemaic description: for in the description of more recent geographers, after the mouths of the Indus river, the whole shore up to Cape Comorin, which is the extreme Commaria of Ptolemy, extends without significant curvature toward the South, moving toward the southeast in a nearly straight path. But in Ptolemy's description, from the mouths of the Indus up to the Maleo promontory, and from the Maleo promontory to the Symilla emporium, two large gulfs open up looking toward the West; from the Symilla emporium, however, up to the Commaria extremity, the whole proceeds from the West to the East, with some admitted gulfs, and the extreme Commaria is distant from the equator by nearly 14 degrees according to Ptolemy, which according to more recent writers approach closer to the equator by 7 degrees. Furthermore, I think the Maleo promontory is today the region of the island of Bazaim, near which is the city of Tanamaibu, while the Symilla promontory seems to be today Capo de Rama, not far from Goa.

"Since they agree in this, etc." These words agree with the designation of this Eastern part by modern writers rather than the Ptolemaic one, namely that navigation along the Indian coast takes place from the West to the East, and conversely reflecting, however, toward the North. What he says, that the Serica region lies beyond the Sinae, is not to be understood as Serica being more Eastern than the Sinae; but Ptolemy understands "beyond," that is, more toward the North, as is evident from his universal map. The Serica region today is that part of Tartary which is called Cathay, where the supreme king of the Tartars resides with the desert of Lop and neighboring places. The Serica metropolis according to Ptolemy is Sera, which now seems to be Sindifu. There is also in it Issedon Serica, which is called by some today Cambalu, but to me it seems rather to be Caindu. We think the regions of the Sinae are not the Chinese kingdom but rather the province of Tenduc with perhaps some part of Cathay.

"And that beyond these is unknown land having swampy pools, etc." One must understand this to be the extreme part of Tartary exposed toward the North, and extended to the Scythian and Tabin promontories. This is indeed even today little known: it is certain, however, that the swampy region of Bargu is there, as Ptolemy also hints.

"The way, however, which is from the metropolis of the Sinae to the port of Cattigara, etc." In recent maps, the opposite is seen: for the metropolis of the Sinae, which is today the city of Tenduc, is situated to the West of Cattigara, between the West-Northwest and the Southwest.

"Moreover, both by merchants, etc." Ptolemy correctly asserts that the navigation from the Aromata promontory, today C. Guardafui, to the city of Raptam Metropolis of Barbaria, today Quiloa, is toward the West and South, namely between the Southwest and the South-Southwest: for thus it is in recent maps, which tract of land Ptolemy properly calls Barbaria, and today it encompasses the kingdoms of Adel, Adea, Melinde, and Quiloa. But that the transition from Raptum to the Prasum promontory, today C. Mozambique, is toward the East and South, does not agree with recent maps, in which those two places are situated under the same meridian, from which that navigation from Raptum to Prasum is finished toward the South. The rest in the text contains nothing worthy of note.

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Ptolemy testifies at the beginning of this chapter that he does not wish to recount all of Marinus's geographical errors, which are countless, so that he might not seem to scholars to have undertaken contention rather than correction, especially since he professes to correct them individually in his detailed description of the regions. Now, however, in general, he accuses the same Marinus of an inept description of the world both on a spherical surface and on a plane, in neither of which did he preserve any ease of work, so that one might be able to complete the description of the world from his commentaries without any proposed example or orthotypus original map/model, which might consistently preserve an appropriate representation in both longitude and latitude of the world simultaneously. For it is not safe to transcribe the description of the world on a plane from existing copies: for besides being laborious, it is also subject to change and errors, as it is very difficult to translate later copies from an earlier copy, even if correctly described, so that they do not differ slightly from it: hence, later on, from constant copying, significant changes and variations arise. Finally, Marinus is criticized by the author because he did not place the longitudes and latitudes of places in order in his commentaries, which are truly two necessary things for placing locations in due order on a map: but in one volume he describes latitudes by Climates and parallels, and in another, longitudes by hourly intervals and meridians: hence it is difficult to describe a map of the world from these, unless one consults those volumes for describing every single location, since one terminus requires the other, and unless these diverse roots are first reduced to one denomination.

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Ptolemy affirms here that he not only corrected the geography of Marinus himself, but also ordered it in such a way that anyone could easily describe the world itself from Ptolemy's own commentaries alone without any designation or image of the world: for he added numbers of longitude and latitude to each place, so that the places themselves could be disposed more certainly and conveniently in the map and the description of the regions, preserving, however, a proper order for the writing, so that first in each province the proper outline is to be completed, preserving the longitude and latitude of each place; then within that, it is necessary to place the peoples, cities, rivers, gulfs, mountains, and other things of this kind according to the due position of longitude and latitude, as is contained in the following books.