|
Click picture for larger image
One of the Most Striking & Unusual, Early World Maps
World/ Jerusalem.
BUNTING, H. [Magdeburg, 1581]
Die gantze Welt in ein Kleberblat...
10 ¼ x 14 ¼ inches
Fine hand color; excellent condition.
An excellent, full-margined example of one of the most distinctive cartographic curiosities ever produced: a woodcut, cloverleaf-shaped map of the world with Jerusalem at the center. The map echoes the style of medieval mappae mundi, with Jerusalem at its center and with each of the leaves of the trefoil representing the continents of Asia, Africa and Europe in the highly schematic fashion of the T-O map. It is the only map available to the collector today with this striking configuration. America occupies the lower left hand corner, and the Red Sea (colored red) can be seen labeled in the notch between Africa and Asia. The map is also a celebration of the cartographer's native city of Hanover, whose trefoil arms provided the inspiration for its design. However, the map’s placement of Jerusalem at the center reflects the city’s pivotal role in Christian thinking toward the end of the 16th century and also emphasizes the subject of the book in which the map was published, Itinerarium Sacrae, which was a study of the Holy Land.
cf. Shirley 142; Nebenzahl, Maps of the Holy Land, pp. 88-9. |
