A Mapmaker’s Dream: The Meditations of Fra Mauro, Cartographer to the Court of Venice

by James Cowan

In sixteenth-century Venice, a monk struggles to create the perfect map of the world--without ever leaving his cell. Travelers bring him tales of faraway, fantastic people and places; the map takes on many dimensions and grows. Slowly, Fra Mauro's vision begins to embrace not only continents and kingdoms but something just as wondrous and real: a vast interior landscape of beliefs, aspirations, and dreams.

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Philosophy, Novels, Italy, Travel, Cartography

151 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1996

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.

James Cowan (born 1942) is an Australian author. James Cowan is author of a number of internationally acclaimed books, including A Troubadour's Testament and Letters from A Wild State. In 1998 he was awarded the prestigious Australian Literature Society's Gold Medal for his novel, A Mapmaker's Dream. His work has been translated into seventeen languages.

Reviews

[Katie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This novel purports to be the journal of a sixteenth century monk living in a monastery on an island in the Venetian lagoon. On this score I was able to suspend disbelief for about five pages. Fra Mauro's ideas and those of the men he talked to come across as too relentlessly modern to belong to anyone of that period. Not that this spoiled the enjoyment of these ideas. I'd give the first fifty pages of this novel clearly inspired heavily by Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities five stars. But then it began to get repetitive and lose its compelling charge. 3.5 stars.

[Jeanette · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very unusual read. And do NOT let the length fool you. This is not a short skip across the brain pond. It holds layers. Philosophers amongst you, as much as those who have minutia interest in the natural world, may appreciate these ponderings of Fra Mauro. He has made it his life's work to chart a picture of the "world" for that information rendered during the general periods of explorations (1300's-1400's)for the then known boundaries of Earth. But not Earth alone.

This is not an easy read. Footnotes alone took me as long as a normal "modern" novel. But it was 5 star intriguing to the perceptions and conceptions about our human positions. Cultural perception and worldview paradigm are parsed here in rather unique fashion. I much appreciated the "us/we" and "they/them" juxtapositions of what is and was "reality".

This is a book that demands concentration to grasp its conceptual depths. And it is SO extremely interesting to see where dogma and morality fall in these strictures and definitions too. No more so than in those implications for humans and cultures who attest in "believing" nearly nothing about the spiritual or God origins of any existence. And how that mind concept in its practical applications may become one of the strictest dogmas of all. Lots and lots below the surface in implications here to judgment of others intentions too. And the physical aspects as well, impelling for those who have intense interest in anthropology or biology/botany of the natural world. The last pages are his eventual drawing of the "real world" from the facts of his research and first person witness to world travelers and other earth locations. I especially chuckled at his one footed human described by witnesses (I'm nearly sure they were kangaroos)and other animal world entities you may hear described through completely different "eyes".

His philosophy and ponderings of depth upon cannibalism was especially astute and illuminating to the profundity of Fra Mauro's understanding of what is human cognition and inputs of cultural context that ground it. This was an excellent read.

I do NOT suggest that you read this on an airplane with a screaming baby in the row behind you and three 8-10 year olds traveling without an adult in the row in front of you, as I did. But then, maybe I do, because you NEED to focus all your attention on this book to plunge its sublime depth. And if you can slide into his subtle and lyrical language of detail to abstractions - you will absolutely transfer your attendance to "another world". Fra Mauro's world of erudite thought.

One more thing. I just HAVE to add it. This is fiction and poses an author and worldview of a certain place and time, as well. It has a mood and a yearning feel of lassitude because of Fra Mauro's status state of a NON-TRAVELER. I think other posters of reviews of this book have possibly missed a layer here and there. And want a more modern snark humor because that is what they may closely self define as that of the more educated of "knowledge". This work approaches with far less ridicule in comparisons. Well- to me- this category of observation for homo sapiens' cognition of "real"; this way may be less snappy, but far more actual to what can eventually be defined as closer to "truth". This kind of deceptively brief exercise could be easily under appreciated, IMHO.

[Merve Eflatun · Rating 4 out of 5]

Haritacının Rüyası akıl egemenlikli rönesansa başkaldırı, "Fenomenoloji nedir? Ne değildir?" in cevabı, Pamuk'un romanda yeri kurma yönteminin az buçuk karşılığı, Görünmez Kentler'i duyunca öğüren mimarlık öğrencilerine alternatif niteliğinde bir kitaptı ve bana Tunuslu Hacı Ahmed'in haritasını keşfettirdi.

Tunuslu Hacı Ahmed'in haritası için:

"Dünya bir kuşun gözünden bakıyormuşçasına çok yüksekten görülebilirdi. Belki de Hacı Ahmed, efendisine dünyanın gerçekte ne kadar geniş olduğunu göstermek istemişti. Belki de sadece, bir insanın kendi kendisinin efendisi olabilmesi için tırmanması gereken yüksekliği vurgulamak istemişti."

Yani haritada iki yüz elli metreyi değil bir sigara içimlik yolu anlatan kitaptır.

[Forrest · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read this book when it first came out in 1997, then just reread it again. I wish I would not have reread it, since the shine has faded. If this is your first dip into a fictional pseudo-history, you might like A Mapmaker's Dream, as I did on the first reading. At the time, I was eyeball-deep in academic texts on history and some philosophical writings (Foucault, Derrida, and Chomsky, mostly). So the escape into a fictional realm that read like non-fiction was a treat.

Since that time I've discovered (and sometimes rediscovered) several authors who do the same thing much better than Cowan did here and, despite the chronology of my encounters with their works, did it earlier, as well. If you feel the need to read A Mapmaker's Dream, may I recommend, rather, Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities, Milorad Pavic's Dictionary of the Khazars, Rhys Hughes' A New Universal History of Infamy, Ivo Andric's The Bridge on the Drina, or Norman Lock's/George Belden's Land of the Snow Men? Each of these handles the pseudo-historical fiction sub-genre with greater joy and acumen than Cowan's novel. Each of these novels had me voraciously chewing my way through them and at least a couple of them have stood up well on a re-read (Calvino's and Hughes' in particular). These works filled me with excitement and (sometimes grim) laughter, whereas the philosophizing in Cowan's work had the opposite effect, at least the second time around. A Mapmaker's Dream was, as the title might imply, a soporific, causing me to dream more than to read. Like a drug, it's easy to build up a tolerance for this sort of thing and need a stronger, headier dose of the stuff to get excited about it. Unfortunately, I didn't find my fix between the covers of this book. To quote Huey Lewis (apologies, I'm a child of the '80s): "I need a new drug".

[Sue · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an odd little book which I have changed my mind about a couple of times while reading. By the end I was captured by the narrator's voice and philosophy.

The setting is Venice of the 16th century where a monk receives travellers returning from around the globe who assist him in creating a map of the world as it is being discovered. They are all witnessing never-before seen peoples and places and Fra Mauro will use this information to make his map more real. Along with his map, he begins to develop a new philosophy, the bare bones of which are revealed at the end of this "dream".

Initially inclined to demean anything non-Christian, Mauro begins to show subtle changes as he learns about completely alien places and practices that can't be compared to anything he knows. He needs to change his worldview to find a place for everything.

As I said initially, an odd little book, but with a lot on its mind.

[Miriam · Rating 2 out of 5]

Interesting premise, poor execution. Formulaic, clunky organization (different visitors tell their stories, doesn't build or go anywhere). Take some historical references, add some New Age-y rhetoric about the world within, use a thesaurus to smartify all the verbs, mix all together in a blender: word salad. A lot of this doesn't make sense on a sentence level, let alone the incoherence of the overall philosophy. It may be a "dream," but only as an apology for not making sense. Even dreams make sense. Or, if it's not to make sense, it should make way less sense, like Finnegan's Wake.

And Cowan's introduction and word to the reader at the end are supposed to orient the reader and tell them what to look for, but all they do is provide a cliche set up (I found this guy's unknown work in an archive, and I translated it for the world to see). The only saving grace of the set up that this is a translation of a previously unknown work is that it helps to explain the unintelligibility of the writing in places--it's a clunky translation. They also indicate that Fra Mauro is a thinly disguised version of Cowan himself, ruminating on various historical and made-up documents and stories: here's what we should get out of this or that fragment. It's pompous and boring and unoriginal--the idea that knowledge is in the eye of the beholder is not new or particularly interestingly explored here. It's a bunch of fragments that don't cohere, but not in a thought-provoking "maybe that's what he meant" kind of way. SKIP.

[Athena · Rating 5 out of 5]

A short read that packs a whallop! Fra Mauro welcomes visitors from around the known world into his monastic cell. Based on their tales of travels he enlarges his map of the world, but soon enough he begins to question how we come to know what we know about our home. Beautiful novel!

[ReemK10 (Paper Pills)]

Walking through a museum in Venice on my first trip to Europe since 2010, I found myself transfixed by two maps: one was the heart-shaped world map of Hajj Ahmed from Tunisia, and the other one was Fra Mauro's world map. They blew my mind!

I must have shared them on my Instagram account, paperpills10, because my friend, Iris, recommended I read A Mapmaker's Dream which she described as an absolute gem. How could I resist? I ordered and read it with a handful of interested readers. Check out #AMapmakersDream22 #TheMeditationsofFraMauro.

I am one of those readers that believes the pull of a book has to have some significant meaning which I'd have to somehow figure out. Why was I so drawn to the maps? Why did I rush to read this book when God knows I have enough reading material to keep up with? Why‽‽‽
(note the interrobang I learned just this week).

So the book was interesting, but I'd say it was more of a book I'd give to someone in middle school to read. I read it on a plane and finished it before we landed. Any significance in reading it while traveling‽

 So what was the book's message‽‽‽

One sentence stood out:

 "Somehow I had settled for the proximity of life as being enough."

I felt sucker-punched.  Yes, that was definitely me. Fra Mauro also writes, "It  has taken me a lifetime to realize my sedentary nature has provided me with an avenue of escape. I have been too willing to remain where I am rather than take leave of this place and journey to where I am not. I have allowed myself to become constrained."  Who among us can not relate‽ ( interrobang, interrobanged!)

As readers, we are more than willing to experience life through the words of others! But then I tell myself, were it not for such a sedentary lifestyle, when would we ever read‽ Instead of viewing the world through our own eyes, we get to live so many lives! Cliché yes, but it's so true!

So just  as Fra Mauro, "a monk, mature in years" was able to create a magnificent, mystical map based on eyewitness accounts of travelers who flocked to share their stories with him, we too as readers create our own renderings of thoughts and visions from the ink strokes of others. We share in their triumphs!

However,  perhaps it is time to stop gazing at our navels, stop inhabiting an inner world, to look up and go out and live life a little.

It took traveling to Venice, to discover a monk from Venice, to tell me that I needed to weave the warp and woof of my own life experiences. Noted.

[Lauren · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Mapmaker’s Dream is the [loosely, I believe:] translated journal of a Venetian monk, Fra Mauro, who is attempting to make a definitive map of the entire world. Stationed in his monastery, Mauro attracts travelers from around the world who want their tales incorporated into his map.
More meditations than narrative, the journal is still an interesting look at thought in the fourteenth century, much of which speaks to today. I wouldn’t die for some of Mauro’s thoughts, but I still read his journal with pen in hand.
Some choice underlinings: “What wisdom is acquired during the course of a life is a result of the mind’s tenderness toward the heart.”
“Those who contemplate the truth safely from their garret sometimes lose contact with his essence. True philosophers are those who embark upon a voyage into the unknown, unsure of their destination or whether they might even return.”
“With our paths in life mapped out for all of us, it usually takes the one that leads us away from our goal (to where we are not) to affirm where we should be.”

[Barbara · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was drawn to this book as the National Library of Australia is, at the time of my reading, holding an exhibition "Mapping Our World: Terra Incognita to Australia" which includes Fra Mauro's 'Map of the World'.

This is not a 'novel' in the traditional sense of the term, but as it states in its title 'meditations'. As such there is no great story arc, rather thoughts and ramblings, musings on the world (physical and philosophical/mystical) and on map making as practiced at the time ... it is a book to ease your self into and let your mind wander as the writer's mind wanders ... for me it was a journey enjoyably taken ...

[Bella (Kiki) · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book has such mixed reviews, I wasn’t confident that I was going to like it, and, I didn’t like it: I loved it.

A MAPMAKER’S DREAM: THE MEDITATIONS OF FRA MAURO, CARTOGRAPHER TO THE COURT OF VENICE centers on the translation of the private journal of Fra Mauro, a 16th-century monk and an accomplished mapmaker (Ptolemy was his hero) who lives in the monastery of San Michele di Murano on the island of San Lazzaro degli Armeni in the Venetian Lagoon. (We never really find out for sure if Fra Mauro did exist or if the journal translation is a novelistic device employed by the Australian author, James Cowan.)

Real or not, Fra Mauro’s greatest dream is to draw a mappa mundi, or a map of the world. He isn’t sure how he’s going to accomplish this, however, since he rarely leaves his cell and never leaves the monastery in which he lives, but he feels he’s as qualified as anyone since he comes to the conclusion that the world might be “...a place entirely constructed from thought.”

To accomplish his dream, Fra Mauro invites elite world travelers into his cell to tell him of their adventures. His finished map would be his creation, but it would be based on the travels and the experiences of others. This idea, as Fra Mauro, himself puts it:

...led me to the idea of fashioning a map that would defy every category and genre. It would be a map that would contain them all; a map hard to define, yet because of this lack of definition, a map that would begin to define itself more precisely. Nor would it be designed to espouse any particular policy or persuasion. Rather, I wanted my map to show the earth in the sky, and the sky on earth; a map that would act as the prototype for all maps scattered in space and time. It would be a device by which the world could surrender itself in fragments to the open, inquisitive gaze of everyone. I fondly hoped that such a map would preside over the birth of another map, and then another.

The travelers who visit Fra Mauro are many and varied, and the book is less about cartography than it is about philosophy, spiritualism, fantasy, mysticism, and flights of fancy. I loved this, but those looking for a book strictly about cartography will no doubt be disappointed. For example, an elderly Jew of Rhodes who visits Mauro tells him the following:

It is in us all, this desire to experience the kinship that exists between our innermost being and the will that created such a kinship in the first place. As such a desire is realized, we become preoccupied with strange and uncanny aspects in Nature herself. We are almost tempted to regard them as our own moods, our own creations. For my part, I know that the boundary between myself and Nature sometimes wavers and melts away, so that I can no longer be sure whether what I see with my own eyes springs from outward or inner impressions. I say these things because I believe that mountain and stream, leaf and tree, root and flower, everything that has ever been formed in Nature lies preformed within us and springs from the soul, whose essence is eternity.

Also visiting Fra Mauro is a scholar who feels the presence of a mummified Egyptian princess; a sect of devil-worshippers; headhunters from the jungles of Borneo who’ve built a religion around deciphering the songs of seven birds considered sacred; men who found unbearable the sound of the rising sun; men who tell tales of the tombs of saints that exude the smell of honey; and visitors to Karakorum, the fabled city of Genghis Khan. All of these people and more contribute to Fra Mauro’s mappa mundi. And, it should be noted, that Mauro is more interested in the motives of people than in their oftentimes strange habits.

The book might be a philosopher’s dream novel more than a serious cartographer’s, but it’s not without humor as well. When Fra Mauro describes Fra Johannes’ description of the Mongol drink called “cosmos,” I couldn’t help but chuckle. According to Fra Johannes, cosmos was made from mare's milk in the following manner:

A rope was attached to two posts firmly placed in the ground. Foals of mares designated for milking were then tied to the rope so that the mares might stand by their offspring. A man would allow the foal to suckle for a short while, before removing the animal and milking the mare without her knowledge. The milk was later placed in a large bladder or bag and beaten with a hollow club whose head looked like that of a man’s. In time the milk began to boil like new wine, its taste becoming sour. When the taste was so sharp that it rasped the tongue and the liquid congealed into butter, it was considered to be at its best. Those who have tasted cosmos say that it leaves a taste like almonds.

I drink almond milk almost every day, but I’m pretty sure it’s not made as the above. If I felt it had been, I would stop drinking it immediately.

The sentence that remains with me, however, is a mix of geography, cartography, and philosophy: “Quitting the place that we love means that we are condemned to inhabit our loss forever.” Beautiful? Absolutely. But does it apply to cartography? I’m not sure.

In the end, Fra Mauro comes to the tacit conclusion that the world is made up of an “invisible geography,” one that only changes when the consciousness of man changes. He believes that just as each person must travel his own path in life and reach his own goal, each must create his own mappa mundi, for he writes: “My mappa mundi lies on my desk, a piece of incandescence, a visionary recital. There is no place for it to reside, anywhere, except in the hearts of men… .”

[Rebecca · Rating 1 out of 5]

I must be missing something; I can't figure out what I should be getting from this book. I only kept reading because Jim Harrison had a blurb on the back cover. This was like rereading The Alchemist, The Little Prince, Jonathan Livingston Seagull, and all those Carlos Castaneda books I waded through in the 70s all rolled into one. Deja vu shouldn't be so boring. What did I like? The footnotes.

[Ευθυμία Δεσποτάκη · Rating 4 out of 5]

Εξαιρετικό βιβλίο, πολύ τρυφερό και με πολύ ωραίο θέμα: τις προσωπικές σκέψεις του Φρα Μάουρο, ενός από τους πιο φημισμένους χαρτογράφους της Βενετίας.

[Phae · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Byron scholar visits the monastery of Mechitar Fathers on a secluded Venetian Island, and discovers in their repository filled with letters, curiosities and "bizarre bric-a-brack from the Levant", manuscripts of one Fra Mauro, a 16th century monk determined to draw a definitive map of the world. The catch was that he never left the confines of his cell, and so sailors had to come to him. When they did, they brought their curiosities and stories with them. A Mapmaker's Dream is a magical, mystery tour which recalls the legend of the blind monks who tried to describe an elephant solely by virtue of the part they had felt. Under such circumstances, it becomes clear that maps represent more than a picture of the physical world.

[Heather · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an interesting historical fiction about a 16th century Venetian monk, Fra Mauro. He is a cartographer who has a dream to make an accurate all-encompassing map of the world. He never leaves Venice, but travelers know of his mission and come to him to report their findings. As he listens to many people from different walks of life he learns more than just the geography of the world--culture, religion, etc. He also realizes everything he is learning is coming from someone else's interpretation of the world...everyone has a different perspective, so making a map to represent it all is not really possible. Cool book!

[Martina · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read this book ages ago, but I couldn't really get into it. Now I decided to give it another shot, just to see if my feelings have changed.

Frankly, I'm still not a fan. Even though the basic premise (i.e. Fra Mauro's efforts to compose a complete map of the world) is interesting, the execution is lacking. The book is composed solely out of fra Mauro's philosophical musings, which I don't find very thought-provoking at this day and age. I guess I'm not the target audience for this type of book? I would have enjoyed reading about the technical aspects of cartography back then, while philosophical ramblings are not my cup of tea anymore.

[Penny · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Meditations" is a perfect descriptor of the nature of this book. Fra Mauro is sequestered in his monk's cell on the island of San Lazzaro degli Armeni in the Venetian lagoon, where he works on a map of the world based on the accounts of their travels visitors to his cell share with him. Each visitor shares a new piece of the puzzle, Fra Mauro is trying to construct ... a new place, new flora and fauna, and new human beings living lives strange to Westerners. Each chapter a new visitor and a new account of wonders seen in far-off places. Fra Mauro dutifully records their stories in drawing and in writing. Visitor after visitor. Fra Mauro finally struggles to fit it all in ... how to depict the entire world, all of God's magnificent creation, in two dimensions?

The penultimate chapter alone is worth reading the book. Almost rhapsodic, in a breathless rush Fra Mauro lists all of the amazing things he's read about and heard about from his visitors and correspondents. And in so doing, the vastness of this world, the amazing wonders in paragraph after paragraph left me, the reader, in awe of creation. It hit like an avalanche. I felt like Emily in Thornton Wilder's Our Town. “Oh, earth, you're too wonderful for anybody to realize you.”

Fra Mauro, never venturing into the world himself, did try to realize it from his humble monk's cell. I won't divulge his final meditations on his finished map, as that would be a spoiler, but suffice it to say his thoughts are mystical, spiritual, philosophical ... shades of Buddhism and Jung.

The conceit of the book is that Fra Mauro was a real person, and James Cowan uses the devices of an "Introduction," providing a context for the reader to understand the book, a closing "Note to the Reader," and footnotes to suggest that rather than being the author of "A Mapmaker's Dream," he simply discovered it, annotated it for the modern reader, and offered it to the world, saving the good friar's life's work from obscurity. I found the footnotes not particularly interesting or necessary, an interruption of the narrative, but I recognize that they are there to achieve verisimilitude. A fascinating little book!

[Aloysiusi Lionel]

"What we long for most eludes us." It started with the drive to create a map of the world of his time. Fra Mauro proceeded with this tiresome task with a prayerful and patient disposition, as the world's invisible geography unraveled itself through the help of messages in scrolls, fabulistic accounts of unreachable kingdoms boasting of salamander robes and liquid gold, and visitants delighted by having survived shipwrecks and headhunting tribes. "This map of the world, for all its flaws, is as scintillant as a rapier in sunlight." Whether we're able to see the finished product or we ended up surmising its complexity, what matters most is the beauty of our encounter with the zealous monk. Written by James Cowan who's a celebrated Australian author and a staunch advocate of Australian aborigonal art, this novel captivates the reader with its authorial vocabulary so mellifluous and expansive. A little bit of historical fiction, and a lot of philosophical musings, this is the type of book I've been rooting for. A novel of ideas, a story set in Medieval or Renaissance period, with the least intention of alienating me with age-old diction, with the best intention of sending out transcendent ideals worth my contemplation. Reading this novel for six straight hours was like listening intently to an ascetic storyteller meant to be a songstress loved by the world. Fra Mauro's voice ended this mutual journey with his inauguration of the self as the ultimate medium in the pursuit of fulfillment, of divine purpose. "The world continues to remain as enigmatic as the day I first attempted to make its diversity my own." This will never sound as surrender.

[Jason Pryde · Rating 3 out of 5]

“I may go to my grave with a library full of read books, each filled with highlighted ideas, but no clearer understanding of life or self than when I was born. “ - me

Bought this paperback off of the $1 discount shelf at a local used book store. I was intrigued because it had a strong testimonial from Dava Sobel on the cover and it looked like a semi-scientific treatise on early cartography.
I was particularly interested because the main character is a 16th century monk in a Venetian monastery and so was anticipating plying the waters between church and science.

Neither of these hopes were richly rewarded. Instead, the story followed the monk’s progression (or possibly regression) from simple recording of worldly observations as provided by various explorers and traveling merchants to a consideration of the value in trying to force a multidimensional world into a two dimensional picture.

The author’s journey through philosophy was interesting also, just not what I was expecting. I ended up highlighting a lot of lines and capturing them in my journal for further reference.
An example from Ch 9: “Conceivably he wanted us to accept that every error we make is one more brick fired in the kiln of grace...Such a condition Simon called ‘no-Knowledge’ where by everything one assumes to be true, or that one thinks one knows, participates in an essence that is incomprehensible”.

I guess you should expect some serendipity-ness when shopping from the $1 discount bin.

-jgp

[Dave · Rating 3 out of 5]

An 'easy' read in terms of ink and paper - not long, and every 'chapter' (which is one 'meditation') is finished in 15 minutes at most. NOT 'easy' in terms of the subject matter -- this is a book all about philosophy, and not about cartography at all. There's also an interesting 'double barrier' in the book, in that Fra Mauro of the book is a cloistered monk living near Venice; he never leaves the place. The 'carta' or 'mappamundi' that he finally creates is based on stories, tales, narratives, and 'truths' that far-flung travelers to Renaissance Venice, that powerful city-state, nearly the center of the world because of being the center of trade for the known world of that era, come to tell HIM in his monk's cell, rather than him venturing anywhere to 'see for himself.' So there's much room here for meditating on the reality of the known and unknown world -- as filtered and mediated through both the consciousnesses and memories of the travelers visiting him, and through his own understanding before he comes to create the map. Quite dense; I believe you would either like this book or dislike it very much. I found it an interesting read.

[Isa · Rating 5 out of 5]

I cannot stop wondering what good pals, James Cowan and Papini would have make. The Mapmaker's dream seems to me, to be the yang of Gog's ying.
Each chapter in this book carries a subtle, but heavy wisdom; the writing style is smtg in itself somehow unique - direct, yet masterfully thought through - each word seems to be carefully selected, but the syntax is on another level also-- still, it manages to appear as completely unpretentious.
(*to be continued, since I haven't finished it, as each chapter invites me to a discovery quest, outside its pages, into realness)
Quotes, that stayed:
"Fra Mauro finds himself straddling two concepts of truth: the one unchanging, reinforced by medieval absolutism, the other conditional and largely determined by new and marvelous discoveries".
"Luckily in my cell there lies the possibility for genuine confluence of ideas, since mine readily mingle with those of my guests."
"Together we weave what we can from the warp and woof of one another's experience."

[Bohemian Book Lover · Rating 4 out of 5]

*After being transported by

*Marco Polo's tales of the
*Absurd & fantastical in Italo Calvino's INVISIBLE CITIES, I decided to
*Pick this up as a follow-up read, since it
*Matched well with the former book's themes &
*Atmosphere. Instead of the great
*Kublai Khan, we have Fra Mauro, a lowly yet learned monk & cartographer within a monastery in Venice receiving visits from
*Explorers, merchants, travellers etc. who
share with him what they know, saw & experienced of the greater, wider, uncharted world, so that they might contribute to the extending boundaries of the 'mappa mundi' the inquisitive, impressionable Fra Mauro is drawing up. James Cowan
*'S philosophical/meditative subject matter & writing style were a

*Delight to
*Read & immerse myself in. This was truly an
*Eloquently enlightening & educational fictionalised, 150-odd-page
*Account of an obscure, real life, 16th century
*Mapmaker, & how he broadens his mind, beliefs & horizons as he broadens the limits of his world map, without ever leaving the limiting walls of his monastic cell.

[Jim Firestone · Rating 3 out of 5]

The subtitle is revealing as this is a set of meditations on life and the world of amazing variety as we know it.

Constructed as a story of a monk who never leaves his monastery but is visited by travelers who have explored the ends of the world as it was known in the late 16th century. The monk is trying to capture the immense expanse of humanity in a map of the world. This ultimately is realized to be simply one man’s interpretation of the reality of humanity.

Some of the meditations are provocative and some are simplistic. The last chapter, before the note from the author, is a wonderful pay off to the story and worth the journey to get there.

[Alistair Robinson · Rating 1 out of 5]

I very rarely give one star reviews but this is frankly a very odd book. To be honest reading it I wasn`t entirely sure if this is a genuine translation of the meditations of a Venetian Friar in the Sixteenth Century, a novel or some sort of satire or metaphorical work. The book is billed as the story of a map, long since lost, that Fra Mauro compiled from interviewing sailors and travelers, receiving far flung correspondence and musing on the work without leaving Venice, as he admits he is too timid, old and portly to travel himself.
Perhaps I just didn`t pay enough attention here but to be frank I quickly lost interest in this book and cannot recommend it.

[Les Wolf · Rating 4 out of 5]

The strange and exotic and unexpected ruminations of world travellers who congregate at the doorstep of a monk from Venice. Fra Mauro then adds his own opinions and philosophic ramblings to the mix. It becomes something of a map of the inner workings of the mind, in a sense, where all of the mind's preconceived notions and wild expectations intermingle with substantive portions of perceived reality. It is almost like the act of confronting a host of gargoyles that manage to fascinate and inspire and repel at the same time.

[Janell · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a book of philosophy described as a novel purporting to be a memoir. The word “novel” on the cover contradicts the description of the book as a translated diary, and it is unclear how much is fiction. Fra Mauro’s map in Venice is really fascinating and a wonderful work of historical fiction could be written about the monk staying in Venice while others bring him the world so he can create a mappa mundi. What fascinating stories… what a process deciding what to put on the map! This book has a hint of that, but far more navel-gazing, so it’s disappointing. 2.5 stars, rounded up.

[Imogen Pastorino · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is not a "novel" by any means, despite the words "a novel: on the cover. It is a look into quite a peculiar life. Spanning themes of art, religion, purpose, and of course, mapmaking, Cowan (and Fra Mauro) take the reader through a range of anecdotal stories in the life of the monk.

Read this as what it is: the meditations of a monk who locked himself up to make a map of the. entire world. He doesn't much like Muslims or Jews, and he doesn't have much of a perspective on the "real" world, but he also finds new understanding in the stories told by his visitors.
(maps are cool/5)

[Jamie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had higher hopes for A Mapmaker’s Dream, expecting a story about one man’s perspective of the world through the eyes of other travelers, revealing a range of philosophical truths. Instead, it felt like a run-on sentence with no real narrative, and any glimpses of enlightenment about the map of the world were quickly forgotten by the time I reached the edge. Luckily, it was a short book—but not even my imaginary narrations by Peter Dinklage, Tom Hiddleston, or Sarah Jessica Parker could hold my attention for long.

[David Mitchell · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a delightful book! It is a book that demands to be read twice – once for its worth as a story and a second time for its depth of quotable quotes. I’ll let this book rest a few months then tackle it again. I am particularly refreshed at how the main character puts aside his faith – or perhaps carries his faithfully lightly - such that he is receptive to listen to all news that comes to him.

[Jacqueline Bussjaeger · Rating 2 out of 5]

Disappointing. I’m not sure why anyone would spend time making this up when there are hundreds of real, fascinating historical stories to tell. This book has no real characters to speak of; only vague, half-imagined travelers with not much to distinguish one from another. The prose is philosophical, enough to put you into a dreamlike stance if you like it, or to put you to sleep if you don’t. Didn’t learn a whole lot about maps, either.