How did medieval cartographers illustrate outer space?
Where is heaven?
What did the solar system look like for medieval map makers?
How did astronomy, astrology, and Christianity interact?
Medieval European cartographers thought about these questions (and more!) when they sought to represent the Earth and the heavens. With the influence of Christianity and a lasting respect for classical knowledge, a variety of map models sought to chart the big wide world, a world that was getting bigger. How do you illustrate a place unexplored and unreachable? It seems that mapmakers had full and complex ideas about the cosmos, even if they could only observe it from our earthly home. Their question is not all that different for cartographers charting the far east or areas south of the Mediterranean. The problem of charting something great and foreign was not new. Imaging space beyond earth brought a new set of creative techniques and philosophies.
Discover the medieval universe and the maps that explain it by navigating our pages on the right!
Credits
Liam Atkins, Bella Crum, Clara Fields, Theo Greiff, and Elie Lewin, with special thanks to Carleton Special Collections and Prof. Morse