The Medieval Peutinger Map
Imperial Roman Revival in a German Empire

This book challenges the Peutinger Map's self-presentation as a Roman map by examining its medieval contexts.

Emily Albu (Author)

9781107059429, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 29 August 2014

194 pages, 28 b/w illus. 7 colour illus.
23.6 x 15.9 x 1.7 cm, 0.5 kg

'The Medieval Peutinger Map sets an impressive standard for all future studies of the map and demonstrates the extent of expertise required to do the subject justice.' Scott Fitzgerald Johnson, Imango Mundi

The Peutinger Map remains the sole medieval survivor of an imperial world-mapping tradition. It depicts most of the inhabited world as it was known to the ancients, from Britain's southern coastline to the farthest reaches of Alexander's conquests in India, showing rivers, lakes, islands, and mountains while also naming regions and the peoples who once claimed the landscape. Onto this panorama, the mapmaker has plotted the ancient Roman road network, with hundreds of images along the route and distances marked from point to point. This book challenges the artifact's self-presentation as a Roman map by examining its medieval contexts of crusade, imperial ambitions, and competition between the German-Roman Empire and the papacy.

1. Introduction
2. Roman roads and Roman perceptions of space
3. The battle of the maps
4. Christian maps and the Peutinger Map
5. German emperors, crusades, and an imperial map
6. Images and the medieval map
7. Conclusion.

Subject Areas: Medieval history [HBLC1], Early history: c 500 to c 1450/1500 [HBLC], European history [HBJD]