Antiquarian Maps and Atlases

[ChickPea]

This one came in recently and I just had to share it! It's from 1532 and, aside from being beautiful, is really interesting. It's not the kind of projection I would expect from this early, focusing on the poles, and even though it shows the Americas as genuinely the "West Indies" with Florida just along the coast from Catay, and the shape of Scandinavia is clearly still a mystery to the cartographer, it shows Antarctica complete with the larger and smaller landmasses (although it would need to be rotated for them to be in the right place). I just thought it was really cool!

Orontius.jpg

Stunning map!

[waldronate]

Stunning map!

You too can have one for only $54 500 ( https://www.raremaps.com/gallery/det...t-edition-fine ).

[Arimel]

You too can have one for only $54 500 ( https://www.raremaps.com/gallery/det...t-edition-fine ).

What a bargain! If only I had that much free cash lying around .

Really amazing maps here though (thanks for sharing them!). They are giving me tons of inspiration.
I like how the map of Lima(?) had fields on the interior of the walls. That is not something that we see on maps around here usually and I wonder how common it used to be.

[BenjaminGPointer]

I like how the map of Lima(?) had fields on the interior of the walls. That is not something that we see on maps around here usually and I wonder how common it used to be.

I hadn't noticed that, I'll have to keep an eye out. Maybe there's some difference between planned cities and ones that just grow and find they need a wall.

[Falconius]

That is not something that we see on maps around here usually and I wonder how common it used to be.

Every impression I have is that it was extremely common for new walls to allow a lot of room between the buildings and the fortifications (or at least a lot of open space, since ancient walls the buildings were often built against the wall with a big center space), both because having fields inside is useful, but also because walls are expensive to build so they want to allow for expansion without having to rebuild walls all the time.

The reason I have that impression is due to historical maps more often than not including fields and also archeological maps and reconstructions I've seen. The exceptions are usually due to original function, limited space, and age of the settlement.