The World Map, 1300-1492 - by Evelyn Edson (Paperback)

About the Book

This engaging and informative study reveals how the ingenuity, creativity, and adaptability of these craftsmen helped pave the way for an age of discovery.

Book Synopsis

In the two centuries before Columbus, mapmaking was transformed. The World Map, 1300-1492 investigates this important, transitional period of mapmaking. Beginning with a 1436 atlas of ten maps produced by Venetian Andrea Bianco, Evelyn Edson uses maps of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries to examine how the discoveries of missionaries and merchants affected the content and configuration of world maps.

She finds that both the makers and users of maps struggled with changes brought about by technological innovation--the compass, quadrant, and astrolabe--rediscovery of classical mapmaking approaches, and increased travel. To reconcile the tensions between the conservative and progressive worldviews, mapmakers used a careful blend of the old and the new to depict a world that was changing--and growing--before their eyes.

This engaging and informative study reveals how the ingenuity, creativity, and adaptability of these craftsmen helped pave the way for an age of discovery.

Review Quotes

A comprehensive and complex picture of the changing face of medieval geography. With the mastery of a formidable palette of historiographic knowledge and well-reasoned discussions of the sources, The World Map, 1300-1492 will certainly remain an important work to consult for both medieval and early modern scholars for many years to come.

--Ian J. Aebel "Terrae Incognitae"

A fine, unusual perspective of world history and cartographic influences.

-- "Midwest Book Review"

A work of thoughtful design and fascinating narrative.

-- "Choice"

Attorneys who study maps either for work or pleasure -- and many do -- will enjoy Professor Evelyn Edson's The World Map, 1300-1492.

--Henry S. Cohn "Federal Lawyer"

Edson has re-balanced our view of the later medieval period and in doing so has provided us with the latest scholarship in the field . . . The book is written in an easily accessible style and is very down to earth.

--Sarah Tyacke "Journal of Economic and Social History of the Orient"

Marvelous book.

--Tom Conley "Portolan"

The book brings together current scholarship on all of the many maps it features, and the glue that holds it all together is Edson's intellectual breadth and curiosity.

--Naomi Reed Kline "Speculum"

This study deserves a wide readership . . . Magisterial survey.

--Daniel Brownstein "Renaissance Quarterly"

Throughout the work Evelyn Edson has cast her net widely, bringing under scrutiny many players, significant and lesser, who contributed to the making of maps in the two centures leading up to 1500. Her footnotes are extensive.

--Rodney Shirley "Imcos Journal"

About the Author

Evelyn Edson recently retired as professor of history at Piedmont Virginia Community College. She is the author of Mapping Time and Space: How Medieval Mapmakers Viewed Their World.