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A Special Collections Exhibition
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Medieval Foundations |
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T-O map from the Etymologiae of Isidorus, 1472 (Kraus 13).
Learned
people in medieval Europe – and this mostly meant clerics – were well aware
of the sphericity of the earth. They carried in their heads an idea of the world
that is summarized in this printed map of 1472. The known world is divided into
three land-parts, split by the Mediterranean Sea (the mare magnum),
and surrounded by the great Ocean Sea, on the other side of which more
land was probably to be found.
This little map has to stand here for the whole class of medieval mappaemundi,
or world maps, since most of the large ones (like the Hereford Map) have never
crossed the Atlantic Ocean, and are difficult to reproduce in facsimile.
© Special Collections Division
The University of Texas at Arlington Libraries
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