The monumental map of the world by Fra Mauro (?-1459), in the Biblioteca Marciana of Venice, and the anonymous mappa mundi of the Biblioteca Nazionale in Florence are among the fullest and most significant representations of the imago mundi of the mid-fifteenth century. Both offer a summa (that is, a compendium) of the geographic novelties and what we can call the "literary" discoveries of their time. Fra Mauro drew his world map in around 1450. Painted and decorated in vivid colors, it is set in a circle approximately two meters in diameter. The geographic representation is enhanced by over 3000 cartouches, a profusion of place names, hundreds of images of cities, temples, roads, and ships, and a splendid terrestrial paradise illuminated by Leonardo Bellini (15th cent.). By contrast, the anonymous mappa mundi is set in a cuspidate oval. Drawn in 1457, this world map also displays an abundance of cartouches and images. It was intended as a synthesis of ancient geography handed down by cosmographers and the modern geography of sea charts. Both maps depicted the image of the world immediately prior to the Portuguese and Spanish navigations. They are the first cartographic interpretations of Ptolemy's (ca. 100-ca. 175 CE) Geography combined with the travel narratives of Marco Polo (1254-1324) and Niccolò de' Conti (1395-1469). The ancient oikumene (that is, the inhabited world) is outlined in the manner of sea charts. It stretches east to Japan and south to the lowest latitudes of Africa. Although incomplete, the depiction of Africa clearly suggests the possibility of circumnavigating the continent.