Hereford World Map
Medieval World Maps and their Context
Distributed for British Library
The famous Hereford world map, the "Mappa Mundi," dates from around 1300, and was painted on one skin of calf-parchment, less than 1 mm thick and measuring about 130 cm square. When we read of its frequent ordeals we may marvel that it is still in good condition and can be examined. Yet it is by no means the oldest surviving mappamundi, nor was it the largest: the Ebstorf map (destroyed by bombing in 1943) was of similar age and almost three times bigger.
Mappaemundi may be square or round, large or small, extremely simple or amazingly complex. Their geography is unfamiliar and many of their fauna are grotesque. Their importance is enormous: for their encyclopaedic ambition, for their place in devotional and romanesque iconography and for their attempts to document contemporary world views.
In setting the Hereford world map in context, P.D.A. Harvey and his twenty-four collaborators introduce us to medieval ideas of the world and man's place in it, in ways that will excite historians, geographers, students of art history, theologians, and anyone interested in the medieval world view.
Illustrations
Abbreviations
Contributors
Foreword
P. D. A. Harvey
The Hereford map: context and history
Medieval maps of the world
Peter Barber
The rediscovery of the Hereford mappamundi: early references, 1684-1873
Martin Bailey
The discovery of the lost mappamundi panel: Hereford's map in a medieval altarpiece?
Martin Bailey
The Hereford map examined
The Hereford map: the first annual condition report
Christopher Clarkson
The Hereford map: the handwriting and copying of the text
M. B. Parkes
The Hereford map: art-historical aspects
Nigel Morgan
The Hereford map: contents
Vision of the world: Romanesque art of northern Italy and the Hereford mappamundi
Jeanne Fox-Friedman
Animals in context: beasts on the Hereford map and medieval natural history
Margriet Hoogvliet
Alexander interpreted on the Hereford mappamundi
Naomi Reed Kline
The Hereford mappamundi: visible parlare
Massimo Rossi
Lessons from legends on the Hereford mappamundi
Scott D. Westrem
Mappaemundi: background and influences
The underlying projection of mappaemundi
R. W. Bremner
Maps in words: the descriptive logic of medieval geography, from the eighth to the twenfth century
Patrick Gautier Dalché
The Holy Land on medieval world maps
P. D. A. Harvey
Mappaemundi: image, artefact, social practice
Marcia Kupfer
A multilayered journey: from manuscript initial letters to encyclopaedic mappaemundi through the Benedictine semiotic tradition
Patrizia Licini
The shape of the earth in the Middle Ages and medieval mappaemundi
Rudolf Simek
Mappaemundi: what we see
Biblical, mythical, and foreign women in the texts and pictures on medieval world maps
Ingrid Baumgärtner
The westward progression of history on medieval mappaemundi: an investigation of the evidence
Stephen McKenzie
Defining mappaemundi
Alessandro Scafi
Jerusalem on medieval mappaemundi: a site both historical and eschatological
Anna-Dorothee von den Brincken
Noah and his family on medieval maps
E. and G. Wajntraub
The world in the later Middle Ages
Travelling on the mappamundi: the world of John Mandeville
Evelyn Edson
Fra Mauro's world view: authority and empirical evidence on a Venetian mappamundi
Andrew Gow
The Hereford map: an interpretation for today
Sayonara Diorama: acting out the world as a stage in medieval cartography and cyberspace
Adrianne Wortzel
Indexes
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