Portrait of Sir Thomas More, 1478–1535. From his A Dialogve of Cumfort against Tribulation . . . (Antwerp: apud Iohannem Foulerum, Anglum, 1573) [Rare Books Division].
Recognized as a saint by the Catholic Church, English humanist Sir Thomas More is revered for resolutely refusing to accept King Henry VIII (1491–1547) as the supreme head of the Church of England, authority the king needed to annul his marriage to Catherine of Aragon so he could wed Anne Boleyn and, he hoped, produce an heir. More was imprisoned in the Tower of London for treason, found guilty of perjury, and subsequently beheaded—this, after years of loyalty and service to the king as an adviser and as Lord Chancellor.
“Utopiæ insulæ tabula.” Woodcut map, 17.9 × 11.9 cm. FromMore’s De optimo reip. statv, deqve noua insula Vtopia, libellus uere aureus, nec minus salutaris quàm festiuus . . . (Basel: Apvd Io. Frobenivm mense decembri an M.D.XVIII [December 1518]) [Rare Books Division]. Reference: Hill, Cartographic Curiosities, 22.
Map of Utopia from the work that originated the word. First published in 1516, the fictional work was further revised by More and issued in this Basel edition with a more elaborate map engraved by Ambrosius Holbein (ca. 1494–ca. 1519), brother of the well-known portraitist Hans Holbein, the Younger. As conceived, the island has the basic shape of a crescent moon. According to More, it is about two hundred miles broad at the widest point, with its ends or horns forming a strait that is eleven miles across. As a result, the interior forms a large harbor, affording residents easy commerce with one another. (That aspect is difficult to picture in this version of the map.) There are fifty-four city-states on the island, perhaps mirroring the number of shires in England and Wales (plus London) in More’s time, and all are identical in languages, customs, and laws and similar in size, layout, and appearance.
More positioned his country somewhere in the New World (or, at least beyond the limits of the currently known world), for he states that his narrator, Raphael Hythlodaeus, participated in the last three of Amerigo Vespucci’s four voyages. On the final voyage, Hythlodaeus did not come home with Vespucci; rather, he continued his explorations and ultimately discovered Utopia, where he lived for five years before, miraculously, returning to Europe on a Portuguese vessel. Hythlodaeus’s descriptions of his residence in Utopia provide the heart of the piece.
In More’s Utopia, there is no private ownership. All the inhabitants must live in the countryside, working in agriculture, for two years at a time; they must also must learn a necessary trade but only have to work at it for six hours a day. Necessities can be obtained freely from a storage warehouse; internal travel requires a passport; every household has two slaves (criminals or foreigners), who can be released for good behavior; and education and health care are free and universal. In the lower left of the map, Hythlodaeus and More are shown in conversation about the island, whose features certainly seem Old World in appearance: castles, spires, Christian crosses.
A recent article by M. Bishop (2005) interprets the map as a memento mori, also punning on More’s name, in the form of a skull. To easily visualize this, begin at the toothy-looking side of the ship.
[Below] “Accurata Utopiæ tabula: Das ist der neu entdeckten Schalck Welt, oder des so offtbenannten, und doch nie erkanten Schlarraffenlandes, neu erfundene lacherliche Land tabell, worinnen alle und jede laster in besondere Konigreich, Provintzen und Herrschafften ab getheilet, beyneben auch die negst angrentzende Länder der Frommen des zeitlichen Auff und Untergangs auch ewigen verderbens Regionen, samt einer Erklerung anmuthig und nutzlich vorgestellt werden” ([Nuremberg: Officina Homanniana, ca. 1720]) [Accurate map of Utopia: This is the newly invented, humorous chart of the World of Fools, frequently called the Land of Cockaigne which has never been found, showing and explaining in a beautiful and useful manner any and all vices by kingdom, province, and domain, also the border countries of the faithful as well as the regions of the beginning and end of time and eternal doom]. Copperplate map, with added color, 46 × 54 cm [Historic Maps Collection].
First state of the first of the “Schlarraffenland” (or the English equivalent “Cockaigne”) maps, which parody paradise, depicted as a “land of milk and honey” where chickens fly around already cooked and each home is surrounded by a hedge of sausage. Schlarraffenland maps were popularized by German cartographers Homann and Seutter; this one is attributed to Homann. [See Seutter’s map of love in this Theme Maps section.] Depicted here is paradise’s opposite: the lands of vice. Each has its own kingdom, such as Pigritaria (Land of Indolence), Lurconia (Land of Gluttony), Bibonia (Land of Drink), Schmarotz Insula (Island of Spongers). Terra Sancta (in the north) is, of course, Incognita, whereas hell, at the bottom, is more accessible. The map’s outlines roughly assume the shape of a fool’s cap, with two peaks flopping down on the sides, dangling islands as their bells. In that interpretation, Iuronia Regnum (Land of Oath-Swearing) locates the fool’s throat appropriately below an open mouth (Venerea Meer).
The map has all the “normal” characteristics of a real map depicting a real country: latitude/longitude lines, a scale, topography (forests, rivers, lakes, mountains), place names, demarcated regions. But, of course, the devil is in the details. The longitude of this Schlarraffenland (from 360º to 550º) literally places it off the chart—its latitude situates it on the equator, where sin is not partial to day or night. The scale suggests that one of the country’s big mouths (“Schlarrafische grosse Mäuler”) equals two small venereal or arrogant mouths (“Kleine venerische oder Hoffärtige Mäuler”). There is much fun in decoding the map’s cartographic humor, but, of course, there is always some sobering truth in something “funny”—in recognizing their own faults, viewers get the message: reform your sinful ways.
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Portrait of Johann Baptist Homann, 1663–1724. From his Grosser atlas über die ganze Welt . . . (Nuremberg: Verlegung der Homannschen Erben, 1737). The atlas was first published in 1716.
Johann Baptist Homann started his map publishing firm in Nuremberg in 1702. By 1715, the quality of his publications earned him the great honor of Imperial Cartographer of the Holy Roman Empire; the privilege also carried an early form of copyright protection for his works. His major opus, Grosser atlas über die ganze Welt (great atlas of whole world), contained maps that were scientifically-grounded, finely engraved, and sumptuously enhanced. It represented the high-water mark of German cartographic achievement. After his death, Homann’s son Johann Christoph Homann (1703-1730) took over the firm, but he died suddenly a few years later. The business continued until 1848 under the name of Homann Heirs, often shown on maps as “Homannschen Erben,” “Heritiers de Homann,” or “Homannianis Heredibus.”
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