Stagnant Field of Study. Geography had no independent status as a field of study in the early Renaissance. Geographical analysis did occur in travel literature, in works of nonfiction that purported to be universal histories, and in maps. The travel literature, such as accounts of Marco Polo or Sir John Mandeville, lacked precise distances and frequently incorporated purely fictional material. The universal histories were largely based on the accounts of the travel literature and thus further distorted reality. Moreover, the travel literature of the late fifteenth century was basically the same, especially in terms of accuracy, as that of the thirteenth century. During the fifteenth century Europeans sailed to the Americas and India, but little new appeared in the way of geographical studies. Printers well into the early sixteenth century preferred to republish these older and geographically incorrect accounts rather than take the financial...