EARLY MAPS

   Many early maps were decorated because the map-makers or carto­graphers had little real idea of geography and presented the world in symbolical terms. One map of Roman times showed the world as a T within an 0. The 0 represented the ocean boundaries of the earth and the T the known world, with the Mediterranean as the upright and the horizontal bar as the meridian from the Nile to the River Don. Jerusalem was at the centre and elaborate decorations often included Paradise and the Last Judgment.

   As the shapes of more coastlines were discovered, the unexplored land masses behind them were often filled in by map-makers with decorative portrayals of imagined animals and vegetation. The seas contained monsters and pictures of ships.

Even when maps became more accurate, decorations survived be­cause cartographers saw their craft as a mixture of science and art.

Some maps were specially com­missioned to be given as gifts to noble patrons or sovereigns. Unlike ordinary maps for use at sea, these special productions were magni­ficently decorated, with the seas and lands full of fabulous animals and the winds portrayed as human. The houses and ships shown were usually accurate pictures of those in use at the time the maps were made.