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The character Dante is guided through the cosmic realms by the poet Virgil and eventually his lost love Beatrice, as seen here. Dante, in his typical red, is led by the embrace of the winged Beatrice to meet Christ, flanked by two angels. Dante is the only living human in this imagination of God's geometry, making him a first explorer in a space uncharted. The cosmos depicted are set in rings of deep blues, plotting the boundaries of the realms leading to Christ. Closest to Earth is the heaven of the moon, noted by the silver circle, then the six golden planets, realm of the stars, and eventually the place where the angels, and eventually God, reside.

What is unusual about the illumination is that typically the Ptolemaic universe is centered around the Earth, with the rings of the cosmos radiating out to heaven. Alighieri was faithful to this classical model when writing the Divine Comedy, since he like many medieval thinkers had access and reverence for classical texts. Instead, the illustration is inconsistent with the poem in that we see rings concentric to the Christ figure and angels, with Dante and Beatrice ascending upwards to reach that center. A possible interpretation is described in Dante’s Cosmos and the Geometry of Paradise, where the universe is made up of distinct but connected layers or sheets of space, allowing both a central Earth and a central realm of God in paradise simultaneously. Another inconsistency with the poem is that Dante and Beatrice never meet a human visualization of Christ, yet he floats before them in the Dante Poggiali painting. The artist perhaps intended to represent the movement of the character’s ascension through vast space toward God rather than a literal image of the cosmos. Canto I, the section the illustration precedes, is whimsical and philosophical rather than describing plot action. Here, the visual effect aims to reflect Dante’s wonder as opposed to a mimetic order of the universe.
(Bella Crum 2025)]]> ]]> Barsella, Susanna, and Vincenzo Vespri. “Dante’s Cosmos and the Geometry of Paradise.” In Italianistica: Rivista Di Letteratura Italiana, N. 1:239–52. Year 50. Rome, Italy: Fabrizio Serra Editore, 2021. https://www.academia.edu/76460397/Dante_and_the_Geometry_of_Paradise.

Cachey, Theodore J. “Cartographic Dante.” Italica (New York, N.Y.) 87, no. 3 (2010): 325–54.

Cachey, Theodore J. “Maps and Literature in Renaissance Italy.” In The History of Cartography, vol. 3, part 1, Cartography in the European Renaissance, ed. David Woodward. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007.

Dante Alighieri, Allen Mandelbaum, and Barry Moser. The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri : A Verse Translation with Introds. & Commentary. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980.

Lippincott, Kristen. “Giovanni Di Paolo’s ‘Creation of the World’ and the Tradition of the ‘Thema Mundi’ in Late Medieval and Renaissance Art.” Burlington Magazine 132, no. 1048 (1990): 460–68.

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The maps vary greatly in scope and size, with city maps (Nuremberg, see thumbnail) and regional maps that show a late-1500s view of the landscape surrounding Nuremberg. The maps show cities, bodies of water, different regions and the ownership that is associated with them, and the natural landscape. Pfinzing uses several different mapping styles, and the reader is shown the German landscape at varying scales; detailed scenes of farmer life are found right next to a map that shows the regional divisions of a forest. (Joe White '21)]]> Der Pfinzing-Atlas von 1594 : Faksimile. Nürnberg: Staatsarchiv Nürnberg, 1994.]]> Rural Images: Estate Maps in the Old and New Worlds. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996.

Fleischmann, Peter. Der Pfinzing-Atlas von 1594: eine Ausstellung des Staatsarchivs Nürnberg anlässlich des 400jährigen Jubiläums der Entstehung: Nürnberg, 9. September-23. Oktober 1994. München: Selbstverlag der Generaldirektion der Staatlichen Archive Bayerns, 1994.

Lindgren, Uta. "Land Surveys, Instruments, and Practitioners in the Renaissance." In History of Cartography vol. 3, part 1 Cartography in the European Renaissance, ed. David Woodward, 477-508. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007.]]> Carleton Gould Library Special Collections (Horizontal Shelving) GA875.N85 P47 1994]]> Pierre d’Ailly’s Imago mundi was written in 1410; this printed edition adds several related treatises and was published in the 1480s. Christopher Columbus used and annotated it when he was developing his plan to reach Asia by sailing west. D’Ailly (1351-1420) wrote the first thirteen of eighteen treatises contained within the Imago mundi, with the last five being written by Jean Gerson (1363-1429). Columbus added almost a thousand annotations to his copy. D’Ailly, like Gerson, was a bishop; his Imago mundi was written in part to study astrological and religious cosmography.

The Imago mundi is made up of treatises intended to bring all geographical knowledge into a single manuscript. Manuscripts like this aimed to place the Earth within the universe, both physically (through celestial maps) and spiritually, with maps that tie elements to geography. These connections could show how God had created the world, as everything was tied together and connected. The Imago mundi also recorded estimates of the size of the earth and the Eurasian continent which allowed Columbus to believe that the distance from Portugal to India was much shorter than it was.

The Imago mundi contains seven pages of printed maps with added color, mostly focusing on celestial and zonal maps. These maps tend to not focus on landmasses, but rather how the Earth functions within a broader universe. The earth is split into five sections in the zone map. The uppermost and lowermost parts of the north-oriented map represent uninhabitable zones, due to temperatures being too low. The central section, containing the equator, was thought to also be uninhabitable due to temperatures being too high. The two habitable zones, in this case north of the Tropic of Cancer and south of the Tropic of Capricorn, are the spaces where humans can settle.

The Imago mundi was written before d’Ailly had access to Ptolemy’s “Geography”, and d’Ailly later published more works that supplemented and complemented his Imago mundi with the information he had gained. He was very interested in Ptolemy’s ideas of climate zones, as they did not fully agree with his own; in particular, the habitable zones did not match fully. His later work, “Compendium,” acts as a summary of Ptolemy’s “Geography”, but with d’Ailly’s views superimposed as well. (Eleanor Lewin, 2027)

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Pierre d’Ailly and Jean Gerson. Imago mundi. Madrid: Testimonio Compañía Editorial, 1990.

]]> Cosgrove, Denis E. “Images of Renaissance Cartography 1450-1650.” In The History of Cartography, vol. 3, part 1, Images of Renaissance Cosmography, 1450–1650, ed. David Woodward. 55-98 Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007.

Edson, Evelyn. “Chapter 3: The Nature of Things.” Mapping Time and Space : How Medieval Mapmakers Viewed Their World. London: British Library, 1999.

Gautier Dalché, Patrick. “The Reception of Ptolemy’s Geography.” In The History of Cartography, vol. 3, part 1, Cartography in the European Renaissance, ed. David Woodward. 285-364 Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007.

Smoller, Laura Ackerman. History, prophecy, and the stars: the Christian astrology of Pierre d’Ailly 1350-1420. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1994.

Wey Gómez, Nicolás. The Tropics of Empire: Why Columbus Sailed South to the Indies. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2008.

Woodward, David. “Medieval Mappaemundi.” In The History of Cartography, vol. 1, part 3, Cartography in Medieval Europe and the Mediterranean, ed. J.B. Harley and David Woodward. 286-370 Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987.

]]> Special Collections (Books) ; G94 .A292 1990]]> ]]> Carte Nautiche. Todi: ET&B, 1975.]]> Carleton Library, Special Collections (Books) GA221 .V48 1975]]> ]]> ]]>
The portolan style maps feature small building icons denoting the location of cities, as well as elaborately drawn ships in the sea near many of the coastlines. These charts use yellows, oranges, blues, and other bright colors to depict islands and outline landmasses.

Of particular note is the large quantity of blank space within these coastline maps—both in the sea and the inland portions of the maps. The city views also contain bright colors, but they feature much greater detail in terms of the buildings shown, and the use of size and curvature to create perspective.

Also of importance is the somewhat ambiguous creatorship of the atlas as a whole. Although most of the maps—particularly the portolan charts—are nearly identical to others by Piri Reis in his earlier works, the Kitâb-i Bahriye, it is unknown who compiled them with the city views, and whether or not they were all made by Piri Reis himself or a later individual using his work as a reference.]]> ]]> MS. 718. Formerly in the private Istanbul collection of Halil Bezmen.
]]> Piri Reis & Turkish Mapmaking after Columbus: The Khalili Portolan Atlas. New York: Nour Foundation in association with Azimuth Editions and Oxford University Press, 1996.]]> The History of Cartography, vol. 2, Book 1, edited by J.B. Harley and David Woodward, 228-255. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992.

Soucek, Svat. "Islamic Charting in the Mediterranean." In The History of Cartography, vol. 2, Book 1, edited by J. B. Harley and David Woodward, 263-292. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992.]]> ]]> ]]> ]]> ]]> Carleton Library Special Collections (Folio) GA1303.5.A1 S65 1992]]>
In addition to its artistic merit, the Khalili Portolan Atlas is notable for its adaptation of charts from Piri Reis’s kitāb-i bahrīye (Book of Navigation), itself a landmark in the history of sixteenth-century Mediterranean cartography for its exhaustive coverage of the Mediterranean coasts and islands. Composed in the late seventeenth-century, the Khalili Portolan Atlas draws extensively on the wealth of pictorial and factual information provided by Piri Reis’s early sixteenth-century charts of the Mediterranean. (Ryan Baldwin '19)]]> Piri Reis & Turkish Mapmaking after Columbus. London: Nour Foundation in Association with Azimuth Editions, 1992.]]> The History of Cartography, Volume 3: Cartography in the European Renaissance, ed. David Woodward (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007), 269-270.

Ibrahim Yilmaz, “The Kitabi Bahriye (Book of Navigation) of Piri Reis,” The Cartographic Journal 47, no. 3 (2010): 278–283.]]>

Carleton Gould Library Special Collections (Folio), GA1303.5.A1 S65 1992

]]> ]]> Geography. The map is a woodcut, and the only element of color within the map are mountains which alternate between green, yellow, and red/brown. Some river origins and confluences are indicated with a circle, but others are hidden behind mountains. In some cases, rivers flow underneath mountains.

Mountains in southern Africa and eastern Asia appear larger than those elsewhere. Regions, oceans, and seas are labeled with names contemporary in the 15th century (e.g., Anglia instead of Britannica); rivers are unlabeled. The Nile and Indus show deltas with multiple divisions. The oceans and seas are filled with undulating parallel lines.

The map is shaped as an upward-facing crescent with a double-lined frame enclosing heads and names of the winds. On the top-left, top-right, and bottom-right corners behind (and in the case of the bottom-right, below) the frame, the sons of Noah, Japhet, Shem, and Ham, corresponding with their continents, hold the edges of the map. The bottom-left corner is occupied by a text about the winds taken from Isidore of Seville.]]> Liber Chronicarum. Nuremberg: Anton Koberger, 1493.]]> Chronicle of the World: the Complete and Annotated Nuremberg Chronicle of 1493. Introduction and Appendix by Stephan Füssel. Köln, London: Taschen, 2001.]]> Carleton Gould Library Special Collections (Folio) (D17 .S3215 2001)]]> ]]> The Hereford World Map : Mappa Mundi. London: Folio Society, 2010.]]> Carleton Library, Special Collections (Books, Quarto) G1034 .H47 2010]]> This map is an image of the region of Prussia with a city featured prominently in it. It is contained in a page cut from the Nuremberg Chronicle. The sheet of paper is a rectangle, forty-three centimeters tall by 29.5 centimeters long. The map itself is a square with twenty-three-centimeter-long edges. As mentioned before, the map is a city view, but it is not specified which city it depicts, in fact the buildings in the map are separated by different forms of terrain which makes it seem like the map contains four built up areas. Furthermore, the artist behind the map, simply titled the map “Prussia, now a province of Germany”. Thus, it is reasonable to conclude that the map represents the region of Prussia.

Like many city views, the main urban area is shown as a bird’s eye view. From above the ground, we see that the city is located on a mountain, with the higher points of the mountain located on the back of the landscape. This creates the effect of going down the mountain as the eyes of the observer travel down the page. On the back of the landscape, the map has the first and smallest city, it is walled, and its only distinctive feature is a church that is also the tallest building of this city. To the right, on a slightly taller rock formation, there is another city built by a river that flows downhill all the way down to the bottom edge of the map. This city is also small in size, and it has no notable features.

Downhill and to the left of the city, below the biggest rock formation of the map, there is the biggest city of the map. This city consists of a collection of towers and houses, and like the rest of the cities in the map, it seems to be walled, creating a distinction between nature and city. This city is also built by the previously mentioned river. At the bottom of the page, there is a fourth, medium-sized city, also built by the river, and also walled. To the right of this city, there is a group of trees that indicate a forest.

As mentioned before, this map comes from the Nuremberg Chronicle, which was written by Hartmann Schedel. The Nuremberg Chronicle was a fifteenth century book, commissioned by Nuremberg merchants Sebald Schreyer and Sebastian Kammermeister. The book described the universal history of the Christian world. It was written by humanist and physician Hartmann Schedel (1440-1514) and published by Anton Koberger in 1493. It was first ordered to be published in Latin with an order for German text following about a year later. It was somewhat of a “best-seller” at the time, with over 2,500 copies printed.

The chronicle is notable because of its inclusion of printed images alongside or embedded within the text, something virtually unheard of before. All images are created from woodcuts, images carved into a block of wood in negative and then covered with ink and then stamped onto the page. Woodcuts were made in the workshops of Michael Wolgemut, Wilhelm Pleydewurff, and Hieronymus Münzer. Some editions of the Nuremberg Chronicle had their plates hand colored by local German artists.

(Louisa Grader '24), (Alejandro González A '24)

]]> Nuremberg : Anton Koberger]]> Colored verson of the map]]>
Nuvoloni, Laura. n.d. University of Cambirdge Digital Library. Accessed March 1, 2023. https://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/PR-INC-00000-A-00007-00002-00888/1.]]> Carleton Library Special Collections (Flat Files) (G5700 1400-1800 Map 02)]]>
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