Until the entire world was mapped, terra incognita was not a metaphor. It existed and was acknowledged to exist. Yet the very acknowledgement of terra incognita raises a problem in the words themselves: without knowledge of it, how can land be represented? This study examines how unknown lands were represented from late Antiquity to 1600 - on maps, and in a variety of written texts, including poetry, treatises, political tracts and travel narratives. What this book does for the first time is to offer a comprehensive analysis of European traditions of representing unknown land from classical antiquity through to the end of the sixteenth century. This includes examination of a largly neglected aspect of medieval and early modern cartography - zonal or Macrobian maps - but it also includes integration of maps with literary texts and the broader culture in which they were embedded.
- ISBN10 0712349316
- ISBN13 9780712349314
- Publish Date 1 February 2008
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 20 February 2013
- Publish Country GB
- Publisher British Library Publishing
- Imprint The British Library Publishing Division
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 232
- Language English