e piu Famose del Monde, descritte da_
THOMASO PORCACCHI, lib. iii. p. 30.]

Such was the uncertainty thrown over the geography of the island by
erroneous and conflicting accounts, that grave doubts came to be
entertained of its identity, and from the fourteenth century, when the
attention of Europe was re-directed to the nascent science of geography,
down to the close of the seventeenth, it remained a question whether
Ceylon or Sumatra was the Taprobane of the Greeks.[1]

[Footnote 1: GIBBON states, that "Salmasius and most of the ancients
confound the islands of Ceylon and Sumatra."--_Decl. and Fall_ ch. xl.
This is a mistake. Saumaise was one of those who maintained a correct
opinion; and, as regards the "ancients," they had very little knowledge
of _Further India_ to which Sumatra belongs; but so long as Greek and
Roman literature maintained their influence, no question was raised as
to the identity of Ceylon and Taprobane. Even in the sixth century
Cosmas Indicopleustes declares unhesitatingly that the Sielediva of the
Indians was the Taprobane of the Greeks.

It was only on emerging from the general ignorance of the Middle Ages
that the doubt was first promulgated. In the Catalan Map of A.D. 1375,
entitled _Image du Monde_, Ceylon is omitted, and Taprobane is
represented by Sumatra (MALTE BRUN, _Hist. de Geogr._ vol. i, p. 318);
in that of _Fra Mauro_, the Venetian monk, A.D. 1458, Seylan is given,
but _Taprobane_ is added over _Sumatra_. A similar error appears in the
_Mappe-monde,_ by RUYCH, in the Ptolemy of A.D. 1508, and in the
writings of the geographers of the sixteenth century, GEMMA FRISIUS,
SEBASTIAN MUNSTER, RAMUSIO, JUL. SCALIGER, ORTELIUS, and MERCATOR. The
same view was adopted by the Venetian NICOLA DI CONTI, in the first half
of the fifteenth century, by the Florentine ANDREA CORSALI, MAXIMILIANUS
TRANSYLVANUS, VARTHEMA, and PIGAFETTA. The chief cause of this
perplexity was, no doubt, the difficulty of reconciling the actual
position and size of Ceylon with the dimensions and position assigned to
it by Strabo and Ptolemy, the latter of whom, by an error which is
elsewhere explained, extended the boundary of the island far to the east
of its actual site. But there was a large body of men who rejected the
claim of Sumatra, and DE BARROS, SALMASIUS, BOCHART CLUVERIUS,
CELLARIUS, ISAAC VOSSIUS and others, maintained the title of Ceylon. A
_Mappe-monde_ of A.D. 1417, preserved in the Pitti Palace at Fl