Reality, Space and Time in the Maps of Matthew Paris

Abstract

Since antiquity, cartography has been the result of the strict relationship between cartographic science and artistic representation. Matthew Paris’s maps are a clear example of the aforementioned concept. Paris lived in thirteenth-century England and was a Benedictine monk of St. Albans monastery, at the time a well-known cultural centre. Matthew Paris was a chronicler, a historian, an artist, a miniaturist and a cartographer and his name is mostly remembered for his historical work Chronica Majora. However, really interesting are also the maps that he collected in 7 pages which form his Iter de Londinio in Terram Sanctam, a group of itinerary maps that represent a travel route from London to Jerusalem crossing France, Italy (Rome) and Apulia. Matthew located this work before his historical masterpiece, but his maps are unique, original and effective. They are the only representation of the Latin world that has arrived to us integral. Thus their value is relevant and worth studying.