Medieval Mapping Levant (1 results)

Excellent. Few tiny wormholes not impacting printed image, else fine. Size 11.25 x 16.25 Inches. This is the Lorenz Fries 1535 edition of Pietro Vesconte's 14th-century manuscript map of Palestine. It is one of the earliest obtainable iterations of a c. 1320 manuscript map compiled to accompany Marino Sanudo's letters promoting a new crusade. Thus, it is one of the earliest surviving maps to support a specific military effort. Relating to this, Vesconte's map was the earliest surviving map to present the region in a Biblical context, naming the areas occupied by the Tribes of Israel, thus opening a long history of presenting the Levant in a religio-historical context. Recontextualized in Print Despite not being a Ptolemaic map, for centuries this work appeared only in printed editions of Ptolemy's Geographia , as here. In the 15th century, Nicolaus Donnus Germanus - the great editor and standardizer of the surviving Ptolemies - encountered and copied the Vesconte map. He began to incorporate the Sanudo/Vesconte map in his manuscript Ptolemies. Since all but one of that century's printed Ptolemies were derived from Germanus' originals, this map was later accepted as one of the canonical Ptolemaic maps. It, along with the 14th century Claudius Clavus map of Scandinavia, were the first 'modern' maps added to Ptolemy's foundational text. A Closer Look Fries' iteration of the Sanudo-Vesconte map is oriented to the southeast and presents the Mediterranean coastline from Sidon to Gaza, and reaches as far east as a range of mountains separating the Holy Land from what, on early maps, was termed 'Desert Arabia'. The River Jordan and the Dead Sea are shown (with both the names 'Dead Sea' and 'Sea of Sodom'). The Lake of Merom is oversized and misnamed Galilee, and Sea of Galilee is named the Sea of Tiberias, a term still in use. (These naming conventions are shared by all versions of this map derived from Nicolaus Donnus Germanus' manuscript originals.) Important cities - especially Jerusalem - are marked and named, as are tombs of Biblical figures and wonders (a well of living water, for instance, near Tyre). Isolated mountains are shown in profile with extended ranges and heights indicated in a 'bread loaf' form. The whole is divided into the lands occupied by the Biblical Tribes of Israel. The Basis of the Map Vesconte's 14th-century manuscript has no clear precursor. His sources include both the ancient descriptions of Josephus (c. 37 - c. 100) and the firsthand medieval reports of Burchard of Mount Sion (fl. late 13th century). The latter was one of the last Westerners to write about a visit to Jerusalem before it fell to Sultan al-Ashraf Khalil in 1291. His reports would have been of particular interest to Sanudo, who, like Burchard, proposed a new crusade. Sanudo, Vesconte, and Burchard's primary interest in the Holy Land was its Biblical; thus, the map included the holy sites that the proposed crusade was intended to seize. Promoting a New Crusade The map was not initially intended for the religious edification of the armchair pilgrim but rather as part of a practical set of suggestions in anticipation of an actual attempt to capture Jerusalem. While it would have been of little use to actual soldiers in the field, its purpose, and that of the plans accompanying it, was to convince the leaders of Western Europe - Pope John XXII and King Charles IV of France - of the necessity of the new crusade. It appeared in the Venetian diplomat Marino Sanudo's Liber secretorum fidelium crucis (Book of Secrets for True Crusaders), which detailed his proposed effort to take the Holy Land for the Christian West. Publication History and Census This map was first issued in the 1522 Lorenz Fries Strasbourg edition of Ptolemy's Geographia . A further edition was produced in that same city in 1525. Afterward, two further editions of 1535 and 1541 were published in Lyons and Vienne-in-the-Dauphane, respectively. The editor of the 1535 edition, Michae.