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The International Prester John Project: How A Global Legend Was Created Across Six Centuries

Ptolemy

This page is referenced by:

Peter Heylyn's Cosmographie Cosmographie in foure Bookes Contayning the Chrographie & Historie of the whole World and all the Principall Kingdomes, Provinces, Seas, and Isles, Thereof (1652)

Published in 1652, Peter Heylyn's Cosmographie presents readers with a universal geography in four books, one of which touches on the Prester John legend. His work was based on classical authors like Ptolemy and Pliny but also more contemporary English geographical work like that of George Abbot. The text went through several editions, with the sixth edition (1682) considered, according to Brooks (p. 205) as "highly regarded." The Cosmography was considered a standard work of European geogaphy into the eighteenth century.

Heylyn's text contains maps, including one of Prester John's empire by Dutch cartogropher Nicolas Visscher.

Most significantly, Cosmographie doubts Prester John's dual function as priest and king, which may not be surprising given the anti-Catholic sentiments of its author. Brewer (p. 239) also notes that Heylyn dismisses a circulating notion (proposed by Joseph Scaliger) that Ethiopians originally descended from Asia. Heylyn instead offers an account of an Asian Prester John and reasons that the Portuguese identification of John with Ethiopia resulted merely from linguistic misunderstanding.

Brooks (p. 167-8) excerpts Heylyn's description of the nature of Prester John's name and title:
And yet I more incline to those, who finding that the word Prestegan signifieth an Apostle, in the Persian tongue, and Prestigani, and Apostolical man: do thereupon inferr that the title of Padescha Prestigiani, and Apostolick King, was given unto him for the Orthodoxie of his belief, which not being understood by some, instead of Preste-gian, they have made Priest-John, in Latine Presbyter Johannes; as by a like mistake, one Pregent (or Prægian as the French pronounce it) commander of some Gallies under Lewis the 12, was by the English of those times called Prior John.
Egyptus Novelo This map, a detailed depiction of the Nile Basin, which features Egypt and Ethiopia, survives in three medieval copies of Ptolemy's Geography.

It is theorized that the map was created in Florence, possibly influenced by the presence of an Ethiopian delegation at the Council of Florence (1431-1449). Its novelty (compared to contemporary maps such as that by Frau Mauro), suggests that it was created with specialized knowledge of the Nile Basin.