A long Latin cartouche explains the genesis and compositional structure of the work:
“Item in hac presenti figura continetur mappa mundi sive descriptio orbis geometrica, facta ex cosmographya Ptholomey proportionabiliter secundum longitudines et latitudines et divisiones clymatum. Et cum vera et in|tegra cartha navigationis marium. Ita quod quilibet clare in ea potest videre quot miliaribus una regio vel provincia ab alia sit situata, vel ad quam plagam, si ad orientem, occidentem, austrum vel aquilonem extensa. | Terra etenim est alba, maria viridis coloris, flumina dulcia lassurei, montes varii item. Rubea puncta sunt christianorum civitates. Nigra vero infidelium in terra marique existentium. | Volens igitur scire in hac presenti figura quot miliaribus una regio seu civitas ab alia sit situata, accipe circulum et pone pedem eius ad medietatem punctus cum nomine alicuius civitatis in presenti figura signatum. Et extende alium | pedem ad punctum alterius civitatis ad placitum. Et tunc circulum sic extensum pone super scalam lat[i]metram hic inferius per puncta divisam et quilibet punctus in prot‹r›acta scala cuiusvis sit coloris dat decem miliaria theutunica. Et | nota quod unum miliare theutunicum continet in se decem milia passuum et unus passus duos pedes item. Facta est hec mappa per manus fratris Andree Walsperger ordinis Sancti Benedicti de Saltzburga. Anno domini 1448, in Constancia”.
English translation:
“The drawing here comprises a world map, which is to say a geometric description of the world made on the basis of Ptolemy’s Cosmography, proportionally according to the longitudes, latitudes, and subdivisions of the climes. And with a trustworthy, complete navigational chart of the seas (ed. note: a marine chart), such that anyone can clearly see how many miles separate a region or province one from another, or toward which territories it extends, whether to east, west, south or north. The land is left in white, the seas are green in color, freshwater rivers are in blue, while mountains are spotted in color. The red points correspond to Christian cities, the black ones to those of the infidels across the terraqueous globe.
Thus if you wish to determine from the drawing how many miles a region or city is from another, take a compass and position one of the two arms at the center of the point you find near the name of a given city. Open the other compass arm to the corresponding point of another chosen city. Then put the open compass onto the metrical scale you find here below, subdivided into points, and any point along the scale, no matter what color, corresponds to ten Germanic miles. Take into account that a Germanic mile is equal to ten thousand steps, and a step is equal to two feet. This map is in the hand of Andrea Walsperger of the Benedictine Order of Salzburg. In the year of our Lord 1448, in Konstanz.”
