Zone Map
Title
Zone Map
Description
This circular map of the world spans the entirety of the open two pages of the Liber Floridus. It is so large, in fact, that the top fifth or so of the circle goes off the page, and an additional piece of parchment needed to be added in order for the circle to be complete. This piece of parchment folds into the book when closed. Filling in the blank space around the outside of the map is text, and along the inside edge of the circle there are labelled rings. The outermost ring has the zodiac signs, then Saturn, Mars, sun and Venus. The innermost ring is the moon, and in between Venus and the moon there is a ring the label of which is no longer legible.
Within the rings there is a recognizable zonal map of the world, with the known world of Europe, Africa, and Asia on the left page and a southern temperate zone on the right. The northern habitable zone is strongly reminiscent of T-O maps in the division of land.
In between the two temperate regions is the inhospitable hot zone, but in this particular zonal map the hot zone is occupied by a red pathway. This equatorial track has a chart of the sun's movements over the course of a year on top of it. The combination of this pathway chart and the circles of the planets circling the earth on one map is interesting in that it would have provided viewers with two different ways to visually situate themselves in the heavens.
The map is mostly uncolored parchment, but the second most common color is a green that comprises both two planetary rings as well as what appears to be water surrounding the equatorial pathway and that encircles the world map, as well as coloring in rivers. Red is used for a single planet ring, the pathway chart, and two mountains in the northern temperate zone. There is a single blue planet ring, that of Mars. (Audrey Kastner '20)
Within the rings there is a recognizable zonal map of the world, with the known world of Europe, Africa, and Asia on the left page and a southern temperate zone on the right. The northern habitable zone is strongly reminiscent of T-O maps in the division of land.
In between the two temperate regions is the inhospitable hot zone, but in this particular zonal map the hot zone is occupied by a red pathway. This equatorial track has a chart of the sun's movements over the course of a year on top of it. The combination of this pathway chart and the circles of the planets circling the earth on one map is interesting in that it would have provided viewers with two different ways to visually situate themselves in the heavens.
The map is mostly uncolored parchment, but the second most common color is a green that comprises both two planetary rings as well as what appears to be water surrounding the equatorial pathway and that encircles the world map, as well as coloring in rivers. Red is used for a single planet ring, the pathway chart, and two mountains in the northern temperate zone. There is a single blue planet ring, that of Mars. (Audrey Kastner '20)
Creator
Lambert of Saint-Omer
Source
Ghent, Ghent University Library, Lambertus a S. Audomaro, Liber Floridus, 1121. archive.ugent.be:018970A2-B1E8-11DF-A2E0-A70579F64438
Format
Map in a book
Publisher
Lambert, Lamberti S. Audomari Canonici Liber Floridus: Codex authographus bibliothecae universitatis Gandavensis, ed. Albert Derolez. Gandavi: In aedibus Story-Scientia, 1968.
Date
1121
Medium
manuscript
Contributor
Special Collections, Carleton College, Northfield, MN
kastnera
Relation
https://lib.ugent.be/viewer/archive.ugent.be%3A018970A2-B1E8-11DF-A2E0-A70579F64438#?c=0&m=0&s=0&cv=100&r=0&xywh=-2338%2C0%2C15987%2C9180
Language
Latin
Type
Zone map
Spatial Coverage
World
References
Albert Derolez, The Making and Meaning of the Liber Floridus. Turnhout: Brepols and Harvey Miller Publishers, 2015.
Rights
Rights for maps held by individual publishers and institutions. Thumbnails displayed constitute fair use.
Collection
Citation
Lambert of Saint-Omer, “Zone Map,” Mapping the World, accessed May 1, 2025, https://hist231.hist.sites.carleton.edu/items/show/21.