Cities of the Old World
This page of the exhibit discusses city maps as they first began appearing during the European renaissance. The maps Urbis Romae Topographia (1544), Hildesia (1600’s), and Magdeburg (1577) all depict views of cities as they began to be a focus of cartographers. Before the 16th century cartographers mainly focused on exploring the broader world around them and worked on developing world maps. However, beginning in the 1500’s cities started being depicted along with larger scale maps, often accompanied with written descriptions of the areas. This was the first time that there was a strong desire for topographical information on maps as well. Cities in particular gained geographical interest as they became centers of political, cultural and economic life in the 16th century. Individual images of cities were often produced and dispersed by governments or commercial organizations as propaganda to show how great their city was.
The Urbis Romae Topographia written by Bartolomeo Marliani in 1544, is a book exploring the history of the city of Rome. It includes maps that depict the city. In the beginning of the book there is a broad map of Rome that highlights the main geographical areas in the walled city. The book is eponymous to its most significant map. On the map the walls of the city are drawn from a birds eye view along with roads into the city center. The hills of ancient Rome are drawn with a good degree of detail, given the general shape and name of each one in the surrounding area. The rivers are depicted with wavy lines and have bridges drawn across them and the proportions of the map are relatively accurate.
The Hildesia shows a topographical view of the city of Hildesheim. It was originally part of a larger collection of topographic maps in the 17th century atlas “Topographie Niedersachsen”. It is a , “black-and-white engraving that depicts the city from an elevated position in the northeast, as if the viewer is looking from a hill outside the city or looking from a bird’s eye view.” (Yuewei Wang 24’ and Evan Orjala 24’). It depicts a side view of the city, prominently showing the city wall, houses and the farms in the distance. There are people on the roads leading into the city, showing the strength of trade and easy transportation of Hildesheim.
Magdeburg is a map from 1577 showing a bird’s eye view of Magdeburg, a city in central Germany near the river Elbe. The Magdeburg map is “printed on a two-page opening and is preceded by a one-page written description of the town in Latin and minimal Greek. The map is oriented East-up, placing the city within its walls and is surrounded by vast fields and smaller neighboring towns.” (Crisitina Camarillo '23 and Jacob Sanders '25). The paths to and through the city are marked with clear detail, cutting through the houses. The city is enclosed by a wall that is depicted not quite from a bird's eye perspective and therefore has some depth to it.
In the Urbis Romae, Hildesia and Magdeburg maps there is emphasis given to the walls of the cities, illustrating the importance of keeping the inhabitants safe although there are no people depicted inside the city on the Urbis Romae and the Hildesia maps. The Magdeburg map does have a few depictions of people in the city, but they are not the focus. The Hildesia is from more of a side view than a fully birds eye perspective like the Urbis Romae and Magdeburg, but they are all 16th century depictions of cities that give a unique insight into how cartographers of this time understood space. All three of these maps were part of larger books or atlases containing other maps and written descriptions of the land scapes and known world, illustrating how people at this time were beginning to be interested not only in large world views, but individual cities and smaller scale maps.
Molly Horstman Olson ‘27