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Pietro d'Abano (d 1316)
Medici ac Philosophi Celeberrimi Conciliator

(Doctors as famous Philosophical Counsellors) (Italy)
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Taken from: Cathay and the Way Thither: Being a Collection of Medieval Notices of China
La Versio Latina Degli Excerpta de Secretis Albumasar di Sadan una Edizione par Graziella Federici Vescovini.

First and foremost it should be noted that the location is below equator, habitable with stable temperature and also.... this, however exists; written in the book: Albumasar dialogorum ad Sadan (1): In the country of the Zingi there is seen a star as big as a sack. I know a man who saw it, and he told me that it had a faint light like a piece of cloud (3), and is always in the south. I was told of this and other matters also by Marco the Venetian (2), the most extensive traveler and the most diligent inquirer whom I have ever known. He saw this same star under the Antarctic; he described it as having a great tail, and drew a figure of it, thus.

(1) Albumasar dialogorum ad Sadan; see my webpage: Hendrik Bate van Mechelen (1281).

(2) Marco the Venetian: see my webpage: Marco Polo (1295).

(3) white cloud: This are the Magellan clouds. On this see also; Hendrik Bate van Mechelen (1281); Pietro d'Abano (d 1316); Yakut (or Jakut) al Hamawi (1220); Ibn Madjid: As-Sufaliyya (1470).