This volume offers the author's central articles on the medieval and early modern history of cartography for the first time in English translation. A first group of essays gives an overview of medieval cartography and illustrates the methods of cartographers. Another analyzes world maps and travel accounts in relation to mapped spaces. A third examines land surveying, cartographical practices of exploration, and the production of Portolan atlases.

Angesichts aktueller Diskussionen uber den Kulturraum Europa unternehmen es die Autoren des Bandes, die kartographisch-geographischen Grundlagen des Mittelalters zu erfassen und die kulturwissenschaftlich determinierten Funktionen des Kartierens am Beispiel Europa zu erlautern. Ziel ist es, kartographische Darstellungspraktiken in historiographische und literarische Wissens- und Uberlieferungskontexte einzubinden und den Kontinent als historische Grosse mit unterschiedlichen Deutungspotentialen zu begreifen. Aus dem Inhalt: Ingrid Baumgartner: Europa in der Kartographie des Mittelalters. Reprasentationen Grenzen Paradigmen REPRASENTATIONEN Alfred Stuckelberger: Das Europabild bei Ptolemaios Hartmut Kugler: Europa pars quarta. Der Teil und das Ganze im Liber Floridus Patrick Gautier Dalche: Representations geographiques de lEurope septentrionale, centrale et orientale au moyen age Ingrid Baumgartner: Graphische Gestalt und Signifikanz. Europa in den Weltkarten des Beatus von Liebana und des Ranulf Higden EUROPA UND DER ORIENT Paul D. A. Harvey: Europa und das Heilige Land Andreas Kaplony: Ist Europa eine Insel? Europa auf der rechteckigen Weltkarte des arabischen "Book of Curiosities" Anna-Dorothee von den Brincken: Europa um 1320 auf zwei Weltkarten suditalienischer Provenienz. Die Karte zur Chronologia magna des Paulinus Minorita und die Douce-Karte GRENZZIEHUNGEN UND GRENZERFAHRUNGEN Evelyn Edson: Dacia ubi et Gothia. Die nordostliche Grenze Europas in der mittelalterlichen Kartographie Patricia Licini: European and Ottoman Landmarks from a Portolan Chart at the Time of Enea Silvio Piccolomini Stefan Schroder: Grenzerfahrungen. Mittelalterliche Reisende an den Randern Europas Margriet Hoogvliet: The Wonders of Europe. From the Middle Ages to the sixteenth Century PARADIGMEN Andrew Gow: Empirical Empire. Eurocentrism and Cosmopolitism in the "last" Mappamundi (Fra Mauro) Piero Falchetta: The Use of Portolan Charts in European Navigation during the Middle Ages Martina Stercken: Regionale Identitat im spatmittelalterlichen Europa. Kartographien der Eidgenossenschaf

The volume discusses the world as it was known in the Medieval and Early Modern periods, focusing on projects concerned with mapping as a conceptual and artistic practice, with visual representations of space, and with destinations of real and fictive travel. Maps were often taken as straightforward, objective configurations. However, they expose deeply subjective frameworks with social, political, and economic significance. Travel narratives, whether illustrated or not, can address similar frameworks. Whereas travelled space is often adventurous, and speaking of hardship, strange encounters and danger, city portraits tell a tale of civilized life and civic pride. The book seeks to address the multiple ways in which maps and travel literature conceive of the world, communicate a 'Weltbild', depict space, and/or define knowledge. The volume challenges academic boundaries in the study of cartography by exploring the links between mapmaking and artistic practices. The contributions discuss individual mapmakers, authors of travelogues, mapmaking as an artistic practice, the relationship between travel literature and mapmaking, illustration in travel literature, and imagination in depictions of newly explored worlds.