Al-Idrisi begins his world map for Roger II

1133

The Moroccan geographer Muhammad al-Idrisi arrived at the cosmopolitan Norman court in Palermo and began compiling what would become the most accurate world map of the medieval era, synthesizing the geographical knowledge of Greek, Arabic, and Norman sources into a unified whole. The resulting silver planisphere and its accompanying Book of Roger described lands stretching from Scandinavia to the forests of the Sudan.