The Incredible Historical Map That Changed Cartography

Welcome to the Precious Metals Bug Forums

Welcome to the PMBug forums - a community supported watering hole for folks interested in gold, silver, precious metals, sound money, investing, market and economic news, central bank monetary policies, politics and more.

Register a free account to join the discussions. When you register an account and log in, you may enjoy additional benefits including access to market data/charts and additional members only rooms (including one for trade/barter with the community).

searcher

morning
Moderator
Benefactor
Messages
45,468
Reaction score
7,683
Points
288

The Incredible Historical Map That Changed Cartography​

This map is the latest in our Vintage Viz series, which presents historical visualizations along with the context needed to understand them.

In a one-paragraph story called On Exactitude in Science (Del Rigor en la Ciencia), Jorge Luis Borges imagined an empire where cartography had reached such an exact science that only a map on the same scale of the empire would suffice.

The Fra Mauro Mappa Mundi (c. 1450s), named for the lay Camaldolite monk and cartographer whose Venetian workshop created it, is not nearly as large, at a paltry 77 inches in diameter (196 cm). But its impact and significance as a bridge between Middle Age and Renaissance thought certainly rivaled Borges’ imagined map.

More:

 
Back
Top Bottom