Christianity and Maps
Enlightenment Through Mapping
During the medieval period, astrological charts were sometimes used to help Christians meditate on Christ and enlighten the readers. Charts like the horoscope of Jesus were meant to be recreated and spread as a form of spiritual outreach as it was thought to enhance people’s devotion to Christ. The horoscope of Christ was created for nuns in Germany to enlighten their understanding so that, through Christ, insight and knowledge could be gained. The visual representation of such ideas was deemed essential to gaining knowledge of Christ. Thus massive amounts of work were put into creating woodcuts and templates to create charts and images such as Christ’s horoscope.
At a time when astrology and astronomy were important areas of study, religious teachers combined religious iconography with scientific observation. The Bible contains a description of the creation of the heavens and the earth, but it leaves many details unspecified. Viewing stars in the night sky became part of observing God and his creation. One of the most important implications of observing the stars is time tracking. For Christianity, and most other religions, specific dates for holy days are essential to practicing the faith. Determining exactly when a day will be each year required careful observation of the stars. Easter, for example, falls on the first Sunday after the full moon after the spring equinox which can only be tracked by rigorous observation of the cosmos.
One of the essential parts of religious cosmography in the fifteenth century was a geocentric solar system. The horoscope of Jesus Christ depicts the earth as the center of the universe with the Moon, Mercury, Venus, the Sun, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn getting further and further from the Earth. The Earth was believed to not be moving as biblical passages state that the Earth cannot move and thus the planets and the sun must revolve around it.
Christian Influences on Maps and Manuscripts
When Columbus set sail, he believed the world would end in 155 years. Why, then, would he decide to set sail to what he believed was India? He believed that before the end of days, all people would be converted to Christianity. His planned voyage was therefore not just exploration, but a mission trip. Columbus didn’t reach these conclusions on his own: he drew on a combination of Christian teaching from his time, astrology, and a manuscript by Pierre d’Ailly. D’Ailly was a French cardinal and astrologer who created his Imago mundi to explain how the world functions. Being a cardinal and an astrologer may not seem the most logical combination today, but astrology was important within Christianity during this time because it was understood as part of how the world worked. Many horoscopes or nativity charts were made of Jesus’s birth, like the one seen above, allowing predictions to be made about Christ.
Other examples of Christian influence on maps is seen in the Walsperger world map. It contains a secluded “Paradise” in the east from which the four biblical rivers flow into the rest of the world. Christian cities are marked in red and other cities are marked in black, distinguishing cities based on religious affiliation. Christian maps would typically add an aspect of time as well, as we see here with the circular calendar that surrounds the world map. Time was an essential part of Christianity, as it was needed to calculate important dates, such as Easter. The addition of paradise shows a beginning of the world, and many maps would also add Gog and Magog, representing the end of the world.
The Walsperger map also considers cosmography, reflecting not only a terrestrial interest but a celestial one. It has rings around the entire map showing the celestial objects believed to be orbiting the Earth. The order of the universe could be viewed and then reflected onto Earth. If God created the universe, the logic was that there would be a celestial symmetry.
Sources and Further Reading
Smoller, Laura Ackerman. History, Prophecy, and the Stars: the Christian Astrology of Pierre d’Ailly 1350-1420. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1994.
Scafi, Alessandro. “The Heydey of Paradise on Maps.” In Mapping Paradise: A History of Heaven on Earth, pp. 125-159 University of Chicago Press, 2006.
Fridolin, Stephan, Michael Wolgemut, and Anton Koberger. Lessing J. Rosenwald Collection, and Otto Vollbehr Collection. Schatzbehalter der wahren Reichtümer des Heils. Nuremberg, Anton Koberger, 8 Nov, 1491. https://www.loc.gov/item/48043275/.
British Museum. “Das buoch das der schrein od' schatzbehalter heisset.” Last modified June, 2011. https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_1904-0206-1-1-96
Herlihy, Anna Friedman. “Renaissance Star Charts.” In Cartorgraphy in the European Renaissance, pp. 99–122. University of Chicago Press, 2007. https://press.uchicago.edu/books/HOC/HOC_V3_Pt1/Volume3_Part1.html.
Breitenbach, Almut, and Stefan Matter, “Image, Text, and Mind: Franciscan Tertiaries Rewriting Stephan Fridolin’s Schatzbehalter in the Pütrichkloster in Munich,” in Nuns’ Literacies in Medieval Europe: The Antwerp Dialogue, edited by Virginia Blanton, Veronica O’Mara, and Patricia Stoop. Brepolis Publishers, 2017.
Edson, Evelyn, and Emilie Savage-Smith. Medieval views of the cosmos. Oxford: Bodleian Library, 2004. https://philpapers.org/rec/EDSMVO.