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Inventio Fortunata

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Inventio Fortunata (also Inventio Fortunate, Inventio Fortunat or Inventio Fortunatae), "Discovery of Fortunata", is a lost book, probably dating from the 14th century, containing a description of the North Pole as a magnetic island surrounded by a giant whirlpool and four continents. No direct extracts from the document have been discovered, but its influence on the Western idea of the geography of the Arctic region persisted for several centuries.

A priest with an astrolabe

The book, lost since the late 1400s, is said to be a travelogue written by a 14th Century "priest with an astrolabe," a Franciscan friar from Oxford who travelled the North Atlantic and polar region. He described what he found in a book, which he called "Inventio Fortunata", which he presented to the King of England in 1360.

How much of this story is legend we do not know. Most of what we know of the contents of the Inventio Fortunata comes from a letter from the Flemish cartographer Gerardus Mercator to the English astronomer John Dee dated April 20, 1577, now located in the British Museum (see Taylor, E.G.R. "A Letter Dated 1577 From Mercator to John Dee", Imago Mundi, Vol. XIII 1956, pp. 56-58). In the letter, Mercator summarizes the contents of a work called Itinerarium, also now lost, written by a Brabantian traveller from 's-Hertogenbosch named Jacobus Cnoyen (also known as James Cnoyen or Jakob van Knoyen; modern Knox).

Cnoyen's account of the geography of the far north itself contains a summary of the voyage described in Inventio Fortunata, related to him in Norway in 1364 by another Franciscan, who claimed to have met the priest-explorer and author of the mysterious book.

The Franciscan told Cnoyen that "in the year 1360 a certain Minorite, an Englishman from Oxford, a mathematician, went to those islands; and leaving them, advanced still farther by magic arts and mapped out all and measured them by an astrolabe"

"Anno Domini 1364 came eight of these persons to Norway to the King. Among them were two clerics. One of them had an astrolabe who in the fifth generation was descended from Brusselites. These eight were of the original party who had penetrated into the northern regions..."
"The priest who had the astrolabe related to the King of Norway that in AD 1360 there had come to these Northern Islands an English Minorite from Oxford who was a good astronomer etc. Leaving the rest of the party who had come to the Islands, he journeyed further through the whole of the North etc., and put into writing all the wonders of those Islands, and gave the King of England this book, which he called in Latin Inventio Fortunatae..."

Mercator further quotes Cnoyen's description of the Northern regions:

"...In the midst of the four countries is a Whirlpool into which there empty these four Indrawing Seas which divide the North. And the water rushes round and descends into the earth just as if one were pouring it through a filter funnel. It is 4 degrees wide on every side of the Pole, that is to say eight degrees altogther. Except that right under the Pole there lies a bare rock in the midst of the Sea. Its circumference is almost 33 French miles, and it is all of magnetic stone. And is as high as the clouds, so the Priest said, who had received the astrolabe from this Minorite in exchange for a Testament. And the Minorite himself had heard that one can see all round it from the Sea, and that it is black and glistening..."

Authorship

Mercator's contemporary, the 16th Century English historian Richard Hakluyt, identifies the author of the Inventio as Nicholas of Lynne. Hakluyt apparently arrived at this conclusion because of Chaucer's mention of Nicholas in his Treatise on the Astrolabe. Richard Hakluyt did not himself have a copy of the Inventio.

However, Nicholas of Lynne was also an English "priest with an astrolabe" from the same time period as the author of the Inventio. Lynne is said to have lived in Norfolk, England in the 14th century, and was both an astronomer and a theologian. He is said to written a book with Joannes Somer, The Astrolabe. This book appeared at around the same time Geoffrey Chaucer wrote Treatise on the Astrolabe. John of Gaunt in 1386 requested an astronomical calendar for the years 1387-1463, aligned to the latitude and longitude of Oxford and this Kalendarium, written by Nicholas of Lynne and extant in manuscript copies, is used in Chaucer's Treatise.

However Nicholas of Lynne's authorship of the Inventio has never been established. Some sources make the distinction between "Nicholas of the calendar" and "Nicholas of the voyage".

Influence on maps

It is evident that the author of Inventio, if he actually travelled to the far north, did not actually reach the North Pole, which in no way resembles the description found in the book. However, it is likely that the author was speculating as to the source of the powerful magnetic force that underlies the functioning of the compass.

The concept of the pole as a magnetic mountain goes back at least to Roman times, but the author of Inventio Fortunata added other features to the picture as well as measurements. Whether or not the Inventio is the source of the medieval concept of the North Pole as a magnetic mountain surrounded by a circular continent divided by four powerful rivers, maps as early as Martin Behaim's 1492 map depict the region in this way.

Johannes Ruysch's Universalior cogniti orbis tabula from 1508, features a marginal note mentioning the Inventio Fortunata:

It is said in the book concerning the fortunate discovery [Inventio Fortunate] that at the arctic pole there is a high magnetic rock, thirty-three German miles in circumference. A surging sea surrounds this rock, as if the water were discharged downward from a vase through an opening. Around it are islands, two of which are inhabited.
File:Septentrionalium Gerard Mercator 1595.jpg
Mercator's map from 1595 showing the Arctic continent.

Gerardus Mercator's world map of 1569 reflects his reading of Cnoyen's Itinerarium. It also features a marginal note alluding to the Franciscan's "discovery", but not to the book itself, which he never saw:

"we have taken [the Arctic geography] from the Itinerium of Jacobus Cnoyen of the Hague, who makes some citations from the Gesta of Arthur of Britain; however, the greater and most important part he learned from a certain priest at the court of the king of Norway in 1364. He was descended in the fifth generation from those whom Arthur had sent to inhabit these lands, and he related that in the year 1360 a certain Minorite, an Englishman from Oxford, a mathematician, went to those islands; and leaving them, advanced still farther by magic arts and mapped out all and measured them by an astrolabe in practically the subjoined figure, as we have learned from Jacobus. The four canals there pictured he said flow with such current to the inner whirlpool, that if vessels once enter they cannot be driven back by wind."

The 1569 map was the prototype for Mercator's influential and widely circulated Septentrionalium Terrarum of 1595, posthumously published by his son. It shows the same configuration of the arctic regions as the 1569 map.

The persistence of this idea of the geography of the far north persisted throughout the 16th and 17th century. This is probably due to the influence of Mercator and Ruysch. Maps were only revised when the region was explored and mapmakers obtained knowledge of the true geography of the Arctic.

The John Day letter

In 1956 a letter referring to the existence of the book was found in the Archivo General de Simancas (Spain) from the English merchant John Day to "The Most Magnificent And Most Worthy Lord - The Lord Grand Admiral" (presumably Christopher Columbus).

In the letter, written in either December 1497 or January 1498, John Day says,

"...Your Lordship's servant brought me your letter. I have seen its contents and I would be most desirous and most happy to serve you. I do not find the book Inventio Fortunata, and I thought that I (or he) was bringing it with my things, and I am very sorry not [to] find it because I wanted very much to serve you. I am sending the other book of Marco Polo and a copy of the land which has been found [by John Cabot]...."
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