Lies of the Land: Painted Maps in Late Medieval and Early Modern France

Lies of the Land examines the often-overlooked artistic roots of mapmaking practice in early modern France, offering an original perspective on discourses of accuracy and their relationship to the pictorial origins of modern mapmaking.

Until the seventeenth century, most mapmakers in France were painters. Schooled in techniques of drawing and perspective—and in the careful study of nature that we associate with early modernity—they also learned the more expressive and imaginative Mannerist f...