Tabula Peutingeriana

The Tabula Peutingeriana, also Peutingeriana panel, is a cartographic representation showing the Roman road network ( viae publicae ) in the late Roman Empire from the British Isles over the Mediterranean and the Middle East to India and Central Asia. A maior Sera, sometimes interpreted as China, appears at the very edge in the East, but that appropriate land masses would have been drawn without. The road map is named after Konrad Peutinger (1465-1547) and is a UNESCO World Documentary Heritage.

Made in the late 12th century, the tab is probably a copy of a Carolingian template that goes back again to the original of a Roman road map. The 680 x 34 cm roll map shows the regions of the world known to the Romans from Britain to India, its westernmost section remained until today disappeared. It is designed as a schematic diagram and forms the geographical circumstances - with few details - only from highly distorted. Nevertheless, it provided the traveler all the necessary information on the location of the main towns and horse-changing station ( mansio ) in the road network of the Roman Empire and the number of trips between the breakpoints to the main traffic routes. The land masses appear as horizontal stripes, which are separated by the Mediterranean and Adriatic. The cities are represented by symbols building; the larger the symbol, the more important the respective city. The number of days' march are represented by hook-shaped red lines. The indication of that place names and distances in Roman miles form the basis for the road research. The card is now also one of the most important sources for mapping and identification of ancient place names.

• 2.1 outline
• 2.2 Description
• 2.3 Meaning

History

Late Roman Original

The original of the road map from the second half of the fourth century (ca. 375 ) included a graphical representation of the known world, in which the streets were registered as connecting lines between each stage locations. The up to now unidentified author wanted to give a uniform presentation of Terra habitabilis of the 4th century modeled on ancient maps of the world; it largely missing the Germanic territories east of the Rhine and Northern Europe.

The late antique original can be traced back to various precursors, including the World Map of Marcus Agrippa Vipsanius. After his death, this card had been carved into the grave, which is located in the portico Vipsaniae, not far from the peace altar, on the Via Flaminia in Rome. As another precursor can be considered the Antonine Itinerary ( a street directory of the third century in book form ) and several revisions of an older map of the Roman Empire.

The original map was made well after 330, since they already inaugurated this year shows the city of Constantinople Opel. However, she was not on the then current state, as also the city of Pompeii is cited, which was not rebuilt after the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD. Again. On the other hand, some places in the province of Germania Inferior are drawn, that were destroyed in the 5th century.

Medieval copy

The late Roman road map has been preserved only in a medieval copy of the 12th century. The humanist Conrad Celtis (aka Konrad Bickel, 1459-1508 ) discovered the manuscript and handed it to his friend Konrad Peutinger 1507. It is not known how Celtis has come into the possession of that copy, nor where it was created. Possible sites of origin Worms, Speyer, Colmar, Tegernsee and Basel were called. After the death Peutingers a copy was made on behalf of a member of the family, in 1598 published a complete edition in Antwerp after Abraham Ortelius.

After that was Peutingers copy to be lost. It was only rediscovered in 1714 and reached 1715 in the possession of Prince Eugene of Savoy. After his death in 1736 acquired Charles VI. its entire library and verleibte the Imperial Court Library a (Codex Vindobonensis 324). In 1863 the Tabula was dismantled in the library for reasons of conservation into their individual segments and initially kept between glass plates from 1977 acrylic sheets.

Modern facsimiles

Peutinger received the imperial imprimatur and prepared an edition before, but died earlier. For printing of the first edition came in 1598 by the Augsburg Markus Welser, a relative of the Peutinger family, along with Abraham Ortelius in Antwerp.

Franz Christoph von Scheyb published his edition in Budapest, engraved by S. Lehnhardt in 1825. A copy exists today in the American Academy in Rome.

The facsimile of Konrad Miller is from 1887. Ekkehard Weber put it on new 1976 and warned of some small errors Millers.

The map

Structure

The medieval map was divided into 12 segments.

• Pars I: Hispania, Britannia (Segment I)
• Pars II: Lugdunum (segments I, II)
• Pars III: Colonia, Treveri, Argentorate (segments II, III)
• Pars IV: Mediolanum (segments III, IV)
• Pars V: Aquileia, Regina, Lauriacum (segments IV, V)
• Pars VI: Roma (segments V, VI )
• Pars VII: Belgrade (segment VI)
• Pars VIII: Patras (segments VII, VIII )
• Pars IX: Athens ( segment VIII)
• Pars X: Constantinopolis (segments VIII, IX )
• Pars XI: Kajseri, Trabzon (segments IX, X)
• Pars XII: Antioch (segments X, XI )
• Pars XIII: Urfa (segments XI, XII )
• Pars XIV: India (Segment XII)

Description

The name Tabula Peutingeriana got the road map for the first time in the print edition of Peter Bertius (Leiden, 1618/19 ). In the Austrian National Library they shall be called Codex Vindobonensis 324 copies found today - except in the facsimile edition Graz 1976 - in numerous museums, but also in cities that are listed on the map with their Roman names.

The Tabula Peutingeriana originally consisted of an approximately 675 cm long and 34 cm wide roll of parchment, which is now divided into 11 segments. The original second segment of tab shows the British Isles, the Netherlands, Belgium, a part of France and the West of Morocco; the fact that the Iberian peninsula is present on any of the leaves, suggests that there has been a first, now lost segment on which the regions of Spain and Portugal, as well as a part of the West of England were represented. The illustrated here in black and white held first segment is a reconstruction attempt by Konrad Miller based on the Antonine Itinerary. In research, this attempt is seen extremely critical.

The map is drawn with brown ink; the road links are with red lines, the names of cities and distances entered with dark ink. The inscriptions in Carolingian minuscule of the 12th century indicate a southern German scriptorium. The wooded mountains of the Black Forest is known as Silva Marciana. Because this term in the 4th century only in Ammianus Marcellinus and the Tabula one hand, and the chronicler Reichenauer Hermannus Contractus occurs on the other hand in the 11th century, it has been concluded that the presentation of the Tabula had been kept in the monastery of Reichenau. There is a list of books in the 9th century Mappa Mundi in a dual-powered bus rotulis testified, which would correspond to the tab with the former 12 segments.

For the southwest of Germany, the Tabula has a special meaning: The Roman Empire is represented area of ​​up to its northern border and beyond only a narrow strip of land east of the Rhine. On the right bank of the Upper Rhine, the name Alamania for the settlement of the Alamanni and Silva Marciana are registered for the Black Forest. Draw Risch of the Black Forest is represented as a mountain range with fanciful sculpted trees and plants which are intended to identify the Black Forest as unsettled and difficult to access area. Of the cities on the Rhine only the left bank are noted with their Roman names.

Importance

The drawn map of the 4th century, is the only one of its kind that pictum as an itinerary in contrast to the more common road map has been preserved in book form ( Itinerarium adnotatum ). Probably was the wound on a roll card as a directory of state roads within the Roman Empire and the connecting lines for long-distance trade. It was intended for military leaders and soldiers, civil servants and messengers, but also for traveling merchants, craftsmen, artists, students and pilgrims. Along the roads, therefore, nodes, stage locations and service areas are located, which are classified according to their meaning by smaller or larger vignettes, almost like in a modern guidebook. In addition, the distances of the stage locations are indicated with each other, in adaptation to the local units, in the Germanic provinces so in marker from where a Leuga 1500 Roman feet or about 2.22 kilometers corresponds. Rivers and lakes are rarely shown as it actually is, which also applies to the marked mountain ranges.

Name and location of some places are not always drawn correctly: So is, for example Kempten ( Cambodunum ) on the way from Augsburg ( Bek Augusta Vindelic ( or) to ) about Epfach ( Abodiaco ) ... Bratananium ( = Gauting ) Isinisca ( = Help village ), Adenum ( = ad = Oenum Pons Oeni = bridge over the Inn = Pfunzen in Rosenheim), Bedaium ( = Seebruck am Chiemsee ) to Juvavum ( = Salzburg). The mentioned Abodiacum ( = Epfach am Lech ) emerged probably in adulterated form Auodiaco, but at more plausible again here, namely, on the road from Augsburg to Lech upwards over Innsbruck, Matrei and Vipitenum ( = Sterzing ) to Trento. If Brixia Brixen should be, it would be because of the wrong road. Since the Latin name for the northern Italian city of Brescia but also Brixia was, is to assume that is meant by the place on the map of Brescia. Apart from the names of some provinces and landscapes the map does not contain any further information.

The card is now of great cultural and historical significance, as drawn on her many places and it reflects the settlement and the roads of the time. It shows more than 200,000 kilometers of roads, but also towns, seas, rivers, forests and mountains. Because of their size distances and landscapes could not be reproduced realistic, which was not intended by the author. The tab must rather be seen as a stylized map, similar to today's route network plans. She served an overview of the existing road network and should also indicate the distances between two places.

Approximately 555 towns and villages, and 3,500 other geographical objects such as lighthouses and important sanctuaries are located and often provided with small illustrations. Cities are characterized by two houses, cities such as Rome, Constantinople and Antioch on the Orontes Opel by a large vignette.