New Leaves is a series highlighting acquisitions in Special Collections and Archives.
One of the great ironies of early publishing is the emphasis on the authority of classical Greek and Roman scholarship. In the age of Google Earth it is easy to forget that the transmission of information, despite the new technology of the printing press, was anything but instant. Newly published texts strove to find the most accurate manuscript copies to reproduce and to create more precise translations of these ancient works, despite the contradiction of such contemporary discoveries as the American continents.
Macrobius was a 5th-century Roman Neoplatonist philosopher who remained popular throughout the Middle Ages for his concise scientific writings on Pythagorean number lore, geography, and the harmony of the spheres. The map that frequently accompanied his often-copied commentary on Cicero, divides the spherical (not flat!) world into temperate, frigid, and torrid climatic zones where uninhabitable frigid and torrid zones cut off the European-Asiatic lands by vast oceans and an impassible belt of scorching heat. The inclusion of a mysterious southern continent refers to the prevailing notion of landmass equivalence or antipodean balance. Unlike most maps transmitted through the medieval period, the zone map is oriented to the north. The 1528 book illustration printed by the highly respected Venetian scholar and publisher, Aldus Manutius, also includes wind heads blowing in from in each corner, a medieval characteristic. Frequently cited in the works of Petrarch and Chaucer, Macrobius provided an important link for understanding the transition from the classical to medieval period and in particular the continuity of the Platonic tradition.
Macrobius, Ambrosius Aurelius Theodosius. Commentarii in Somnium Scipionis. 1528. Venetiis : In aedibus Aldi, et Andreae Asulani soceri, MDXXVIII mense Aprili [April 1528]. Call Number:SpCR. 875.01 M1747c152
For more information about this text and other map resources, contact Special Collections and Archives at: archives@depaul.edu