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

by Emily Albu

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.

194 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2014

Reviews

[Amber · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved this book. It’s research for my masters thesis and I think Albu makes a million great points. I basically knocked it down a star because I really think it would have had more authority with footnotes rather than end notes.

[Bruce MacBain · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very thorough and interesting exploration of this unique map, which may derive from a late Roman original, reinterpreted by Frankish cartographers of the early middle ages.