The Medieval Peutinger Map: Imperial Roman Revival in a German Empire

by Emily Albu

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781107059429
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	08/29/2014
Pages:	194
Product dimensions:	6.26(w) x 9.29(h) x 0.67(d)

About the Author

Emily Albu is Associate Professor of Classics at the University of California, Davis. She is the author of The Normans in their Histories (2000) and has published articles in Imago Mundi, Anglo-Norman Studies, the Haskins Society Journal, and Arethusa. Her research interests include classical receptions, late antiquity, the twelfth century, and medieval historiography and cartography.

Table of Contents

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.

Editorial Reviews

"… the author marshals an impressive body of evidence from classical and medieval primary sources … highly recommended."
R. T. Ingoglia, Choice

"This is an original and important book."
Bryn Mawr Classical Review

'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

From the Publisher