The Fra Mauro map was created around 1459 by the Venetian monk Fra Mauro. Commissioned by King Afonso V of Portugal, it is considered the greatest memorial of medieval cartography. The circular planisphere, drawn on parchment and mounted on a wooden frame about 2 meters in diameter, depicts the known world with extensive annotations. Unlike earlier maps, it places south at the top and shows Africa as potentially circumnavigable — a theory confirmed by Portuguese navigators decades later.