Monday's Mappa Mundi

The latest map to be added to my Mappae Mundi collection of historical world maps is Urbano Monte's 1587 Planisphere. Urbano Monte's Planisphere has been in the news a lot this year because the David Rumsey Map Collection at Stanford University recently acquired one of the only two existing manuscript copies of the map.

The original manuscript map is in the form of a 60 sheet atlas. Urbano Monte intended for the sheets to be joined together to create one very large 10 foot map. The David Rumsey Map Collection has achieved that goal by digitizing all 60 sheets and creating a digital interactive map of the planisphere.

Urbano Monte's Planisphere uses a north polar azimuthal projection. This projection places the North Pole at the center of the map. Monte himself suggested that a central pivot be added to the center of the map so that users could rotate the map while exploring the atlas.

If you are interested in viewing the map using different projections you can use Urbano Monte World Map Reprojections.. Visionscarto has used the map tiles from the David Rumsey interactive map to create a tool for viewing the map in 21 different map projections. They even include everyone's favorite Mercator projection, which means you can make direct comparisons with Google Maps if you so wish.

To view Urbano Monte's Planisphere on my Mappae Mundi just click on the 1587 button and wait for the map to load. You can also view the world map at the David Rumsey Map Collection.