The Beauty of Maps

An episode from an amazing BBC series on maps as cultural objects, historical records, and as art. Incdentally, I fucking love maps, so this really couldn't be more convenient!

This episode deals with the Mappa Mundi, poduced in England in the Middle Ages, when Europe was teetering on the brink of the Renaissance. Incorporating crude geography, religious thought, history and myth, maps like this are the closest thing to an Encyclopoedia this age produced.

It does not face Nortward, as is the convention now, but Eastward - towards Jerusalem. It also chronicles the monsters and savages that live in the little-known outer edges of the known world...

And, like a time-capsule, it reveals not only what they saw, but the deeply, fearfully Christian lense through which everything was understood, making this a map that depicts not only the world as they saw it, but the world in relation to eternity. Yeah, it was one hell of map...

"Our love affair with maps is as old as civilization itself. Each map tells its own story and hides its own secret. Maps delight, they unsettle, they reveal deep truths, not just about where we come from, but about who we are.”