Map of Central Europe

Map of Central Europe

Germania Karte, Redaction A of the Cusanus Map

The original version of this map, published ca. 1490 in Florence, was created by Henricus Martellus from the previous work of Nicolaus Cusanus. Cusanus can be credited with the creation of the first modern map of central Europe. Martellus’s version of this region was published in his Insularium illustratum, as one part of an atlas of the Aegean sea. The work of both Cusanus and Martellus emerged within the German humanist tradition, and it is likely that Martellus moved from Nuremberg to Florence when Nuremberg was the center of the German Renaissance during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.

While we do not know much of the life of Henricus Martellus, we do know that Cusanus was educated in the humanist style, with proficiency in astronomy, political science, and Islamic studies, to name a few. Henricus Martellus’s work can be grouped into three distinct categories, his Insularium, editions of Ptolemy’s Geography, and a wall map of the world created around the same time as this map of central Europe.

The map itself occupies two manuscript pages laid flat and covers the region from the Netherlands to the Black Sea and from the Adriatic Sea to Denmark. Drawn in a rectangle, this map has a stylized border. Geographical features make up the entirety of this map, with no religious, magical, or animalistic depictions. The various geographical markers include mountains, bodies of water (oceans, lakes, and rivers), and groupings of trees. Each town or city depicted is drawn with an accompanying building, which seems to vary in size depending on the given town’s population and importance. All notations on this map are written in Latin. Notably in the southwestern corner of this map is a large collection of mountains, dividing Italy and the Adriatic from the rest of the landmass. These mountains are drawn artistically, conveying a sense of movement and traversability, with waterways and towns scattered between various stretches of mountain range.

There are four large bodies of water depicted in dark blue which create some of the most striking features of the map. To the north there is the Mare Germanicum and Germanicum, divided by what seems to be Denmark. To the far east is the Mare Maior, and to the south the Adriatici Maris. The most densely populated area of this map surrounds Bohemia, which is situated just left of center. As one moves eastward the density of towns and geographical features decreases.

(Riley Gibson 2026)

Henricus Martellus Germania

Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, MS Magl. XIII. 16

Map in Manuscript

Kreuer, Werner. Monumenta cartographica 1490-1525 : kartographische Denkmäler, ein Triumph über die Zeit : Essener Bearbeitung von sechs Tafeln aus der Frühzeit der Kartographie mit sechs Vollfaksimilierungen. Essen: Institut für Geographie der Universität GH Essen, 1996.

ca. 1490

Manuscript

Special Collections, Carleton College, Northfield, MN

Latin

Regional map

Central Europe

Meurer, Peter H. “Cartography in the German Lands, 1450-1650.” In The History of Cartography vol. 3, part 2, Cartography in the European Renaissance, ed. David Woodward. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007.

Dalché, Patrick Gautier. “The Reception of Ptolemy’s Geography (End of the Fourteenth to Beginning of the Sixteenth Century).” In The History of Cartography vol. 3, part 1, Cartography in the European Renaissance, ed. David Woodward. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007.

Van Duzer, Chet. “Henricus Martellus and His Work.” In Henricus Martellus’s World Map at Yale (c. 1491) : Multispectral Imaging, Sources, and Influence. 1st ed. 2019. Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2019. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-76840-3.

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