Cycling map

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Bike maps are part of the mappae mundi and are characterized by the circular representation of the world known at the time. For this reason, the TO cards , which were widespread in the Middle Ages , can be seen as a modification of the cycling maps.

General

According to the Bible (and also ancient sources) the known world was presented "in the earth " (O-shape). Since the work was carried out by monks, such representations are also called monk cards .

The cards are almost always faces east (east is at the top), in the top half of the circle is Asia and usually also the paradise , below are Europe and Africa . With the establishment of the Christian Kingdom of Jerusalem , the maps change in that the Holy Land occupies the center of the world.

The famous world map by Andreas Walsperger can be called a bike map.

TO cards

Isidore, Bishop of Seville , tried with his work Etymologiae to collect and preserve all knowledge from antiquity. In the de natura rerum chapter , the viewer will find a map of the world on which the earth is surrounded by the ocean . Two rivers, Don and Nile , and the Mediterranean Sea divide the land mass into three continents, Europe , Africa and Asia .

In one passage from the scholar it says:

“Orbis a rotunditate circuli dictus, quia sicut rota est […] Undique enim Oceanus circumfluens eius in circulo ambit fines. Divisus est autem trifarie: e quibus una pars Asia, altera Europe, tertia Africa nuncupatur. "

“The [earth] circle is named after the roundness of the circle [...] That is why the ocean flowing around it changes within the boundaries of a circle. It is in turn divided into three parts: one part is called Asia, the other Europe, the third Africa. "

- Etymologiae , chap. 14: de terra et partibus

The letter T, Tau , is also a symbol of the universe . The Florentine Leonardo Dati writes the following about the division into three parts in his poem La Sfera :

"Un T dentro a uno O monstra il disegno Come in tre parte fu diviso il mondo"

"A T within an O shows us the picture of how the earth was divided into three areas."

The T-shaped trisection and the circular, i.e. O-shaped representation of the earth are responsible for the designation "TO cards". Often they were inserted into psalteries as small text images . With the crusades from 1100, however, the contents of the maps became more extensive and correspondingly larger representations were created.

Pictures of famous cycling maps

  • Hereford map ,
    13th century

  • Ebstorf world map ,
    no later than 1300

  • Cycling map
    “after Isidore of Seville”,
    from Jean Mansel ,
    La Fleur des Histoires, manuscript, Valenciennes,
    1459–1463

  • Cycling map from Isidore von Sevillas Etymologiae , first print Günther Zainer , 1472

  • Scheme based on Meyers Konversationslexikon, 1888, revised (geosted as in the Middle Ages)

  • Fra Mauros world map from 1459

literature

See also

  • Glyph ♁ as a symbol for earth or church

Web links

Commons : Cycling map (T-and-O map)  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files
Wiktionary: TO scheme  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hartmut Kugler: High medieval world maps as historical images. In: Goetz Hans-Werner (Hrsg.): High medieval historical consciousness in the mirror of non-historical sources. Berlin 1998, pp. 179-200, here p. 179.
  2. ^ Joachim Gustav Leithäuser: Mappae mundi. The spiritual conquest of the world . Berlin 1958, pp. 61-62.
  3. ↑ Anna-Dorothee von den Brincken: Mappa mundi and Chronographia. Studies on the imago mundi of the occidental Middle Ages. In: German Archive for Research into the Middle Ages. Vol. 24, 1968, pp. 118-186, here p. 131.