Parva Germania
Title
Parva Germania
Alternative Title
Eichstätt Map; Cusanus Map
Description
This map depicts central Europe, from the Baltic Sea down to Venice, and from Flanders to the Crimean peninsula. It mainly focuses on cities and the major natural features of the landscape, such as seas, major lakes and rivers, and large forests, as well as many islands. A clear effort was made to be faithful to the current knowledge of the area, with many places and modern cities easily recognizable.
Every city, body of water, and region is labeled in Latin. Each city is represented by a little drawing of a building, or several buildings for larger cities. The city of Varad, now Oradea in Transylvania, for example, is drawn as a large castle, but the many large settlements along the Rhine River are each drawn as multiple large buildings, also indicating their size, but showing that they are different, perhaps less hostile to the people making the map.
Similarly, the forests are drawn with trees of different sizes and densities in different places, holding a lot of detail about the terrain in a very simple way. These features keep the map feeling uncluttered and simple without compromising on detail. There was also a lot of care paid to the rivers, with many minor rivers filled in where a different map maker might not have deemed them important enough for such a large scale map.
The map was clearly made through different accounts of regions being synthesized into one whole map, as some places appear to be out of place slightly when compared to the entire map, but everything is extremely precise relative to the things close to them. It is also notable that the bottom edge of the map had been drawn, and then a decision was made to continue south, likely as a new source was found with knowledge of that southern area.
The map is also written in Latin instead of German or any other commonly spoken language of the area at that time, indicating that this is more of an academic source than one designed for popular consumption.
(Nicholas McGlashan 2027)
Every city, body of water, and region is labeled in Latin. Each city is represented by a little drawing of a building, or several buildings for larger cities. The city of Varad, now Oradea in Transylvania, for example, is drawn as a large castle, but the many large settlements along the Rhine River are each drawn as multiple large buildings, also indicating their size, but showing that they are different, perhaps less hostile to the people making the map.
Similarly, the forests are drawn with trees of different sizes and densities in different places, holding a lot of detail about the terrain in a very simple way. These features keep the map feeling uncluttered and simple without compromising on detail. There was also a lot of care paid to the rivers, with many minor rivers filled in where a different map maker might not have deemed them important enough for such a large scale map.
The map was clearly made through different accounts of regions being synthesized into one whole map, as some places appear to be out of place slightly when compared to the entire map, but everything is extremely precise relative to the things close to them. It is also notable that the bottom edge of the map had been drawn, and then a decision was made to continue south, likely as a new source was found with knowledge of that southern area.
The map is also written in Latin instead of German or any other commonly spoken language of the area at that time, indicating that this is more of an academic source than one designed for popular consumption.
(Nicholas McGlashan 2027)
Creator
Nicholas Cusanus
Source
Nuremberg, Germanisches Nationalmuseum, La214
Format
Sheet map
Publisher
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.
Date
1491
Medium
Engraving
Contributor
Special Collections, Carleton College, Northfield, Mn
Language
Latin
Type
Regional Map
Spatial Coverage
Central Europe
References
Meurer, Peter H. “Cartography in the German Lands, 1450 –1650.” In History of Cartography, Volume 3, 1172–74, n.d. https://press.uchicago.edu/books/hoc/HOC_V3_Pt2/HOC_VOLUME3_Part2_chapter42.pdf.
Rights
Rights for maps held by individual publishers and institutions. Thumbnails displayed constitute fair use.
Collection
Citation
Nicholas Cusanus, “Parva Germania,” Mapping the World, accessed April 30, 2025, https://hist231.hist.sites.carleton.edu/items/show/76.