The World in a Cloverleaf: A World Map from 1581

In 1581, the medieval car­tog­ra­ph­er and Protes­tant the­olo­gian Hein­rich Bünt­ing cre­at­ed a sym­bol­ic map of the world that adorned his book Itin­er­ar­i­um Sacrae Scrip­turae (Trav­el Through Holy Scrip­ture). Hand-col­ored and shaped like a three-leaf clover, the map put Jerusalem at its cen­ter, high­light­ing its cen­tral role in Chris­tian­i­ty, Judaism, and Islam. From that cen­ter flowed three continents—Europe, Africa, and Asia—each sur­round­ed by swirling waters teem­ing with ships, mer­maids, and sea mon­sters. Then, off to one side, we find a bar­ren “Amer­i­ca,” oth­er­wise known as the “New World.”

The three-leaf clover design like­ly sym­bol­izes the Chris­t­ian trin­i­ty, while also pay­ing homage to the clover design found on the coat of arms of Bünt­ing’s native home­town, Hanover. Beyond the map fea­tured above, Bünt­ing also designed some oth­er notably uncon­ven­tion­al maps. Take, for exam­ple, a map where Europe takes the form of a vir­gin queen, or a map of Asia that’s shaped like the winged horse Pega­sus. You can view a copy of the Itin­er­ar­i­um Sacrae Scrip­turae online.

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via Ian Brem­mer

Relat­ed Con­tent 

Explore the Here­ford Map­pa Mun­di, the Largest Medieval Map Still in Exis­tence (Cir­ca 1300)

When a Medieval Monk Crowd­sourced the Most Accu­rate Map of the World, Cre­at­ing “the Google Earth of the 1450s”

Europe’s Old­est Map: Dis­cov­er the Saint-Bélec Slab (Cir­ca 2150–1600 BCE)