Antique World Map — Psalter Map, Miller Facsimile 1895, Plate 1

Every inscription on the sheet

The plate carries two kinds of lettering. Miller’s own headings and captions are printed in modern type and are given here letter for letter. Everything inside the picture is the thirteenth-century hand of the manuscript, reproduced by photography; it is tiny and soft on the plate, so only names that can be read with confidence on this scan are listed, and the hundreds of other names are left out. German and Latin are translated in [square brackets].

• Head of the plate, upper left: Miller, Mappaemundi II. [Miller, Mappaemundi, part II]; upper right: Tafel 1. [Plate 1]
• Caption below the picture, centered: Psalterkarte von London. [Psalter map of London]; below it, in smaller type: 13. Jahrh. (British Mus. Biblioth. ms. 6806.) [13th century (British Museum Library ms. 6806)]
• Small type at the lower right, two lines: Dieselbe Karte restituiert in Mappaemundi Heft III, Taf. 3. [The same map restored in Mappaemundi part III, plate 3] and Beschreibung derselben in Mappaemundi Heft III. [Description of the same in Mappaemundi part III]
• Band of winds, top, left of the wind face above the map: a name beginning subsolan (the end is unclear); the other wind names round the rim are only partly legible on this scan.
• Inside the map, top: arbor solis [tree of the sun] beside the left of two trees, to the right of the small roundel with two heads.
• Inside the map, center: the name of Jerusalem written round the dark central disc; the first letters are unclear.
• Inside the map, upper right of center: egyptus [Egypt], beside a dark band of water with light patches.
• Inside the map, left edge: amazones [Amazons] and albania [Albania].
• Inside the map, lower left: roma [Rome], above a small group of towers.

The sheet and the record do not agree on the manuscript number: the caption gives “ms. 6806”, while the map is today British Library Add MS 28681, and Add MS 6806 is a volume of Andrew Mitchell’s letters of 1756–57. The caption’s “13. Jahrh.” agrees with the Library’s date of after 1262. The plate is a black-and-white collotype, while the Library describes the original as pen and wash with areas of full color and gold.

Editions and other known copies

• ETH Library Zurich, Rar K 257: 2 (the copy scanned for this file, e-rara record 11583321, plate image 11583326): DataCite record DOI 10.3931/e-rara-38523, “Die ältesten Weltkarten / 2 Atlas von 16 Lichtdruck-Tafeln : von Konrad Miller”, Jos. Roth’sche Verlagshandlung, 1895, “16 Taf.”, with the note “Betrifft: Psalter-Karte, Beatus, Cotton Map, Hieronymus, Heinrich von Mainz, Higden”.
• Bibliothèques numériques de la Défense (France): the whole series, 1895–1898, six volumes, 30 cm, Jos. Roth’sche Verlagshandlung; the copy bears the stamp of the Service hydrographique, which gave it in 1969.
• Technisches Museum Wien, library (catalogue no. 47632): the six parts listed, Heft II as an “Atlas von 16 Lichtdrucktafeln”.
• Internet Archive, from a University of California copy digitized by Google (bub_gb_ai5FAQAAMAAJ): catalogued as the series, but the scan is Heft VI; its list of abbreviations gives “Ps = Psalter London — Mm III. 38”, the place where Miller describes this map in part III.
• Kujawsko-Pomorska Biblioteka Cyfrowa, Toruń University Library: Heft IV, Die Herefordkarte, with the imprint “STUTTGART. JOS. ROTH’SCHE VERLAGSHANDLUNG 1896”.
• None of these records names a second printing of Heft II or differences between copies of this plate.

Catalog entries and sources

• Original: British Library, Add MS 28681, folio 9r (map) and 9v (Christ with a globe of the three continents); 226 folios, 170 × 130 mm.
• This plate: Miller, Mappaemundi, Heft II, Tafel 1; ETH Library Zurich Rar K 257: 2; e-rara 11583321 (plate 11583326); DOI 10.3931/e-rara-38523.
• Sources for the story and this record: British Library, archives and manuscripts catalogue, Add MS 28681; Neue Deutsche Biographie, vol. 17 (1994), article “Miller, Konrad” by Hans Hablitzel; Lexikon der Kartographie und Geomatik (Spektrum), “Miller, Konrad”; David Woodward, “Medieval Mappaemundi”, History of Cartography, vol. 1, ch. 18; Brott, “The Geography of Devotion in the British Library Map Psalter”, Cartographica 53:3 (2018); Przygodzka, article in Groundings (University of Glasgow, 2024); DataCite record of the e-rara atlas; library records of Bibliothèques numériques de la Défense, Technisches Museum Wien, Internet Archive and Toruń University Library.

This copy

The scan shows the whole plate with wide plain margins and the photograph printed as a slightly darker rectangle with soft edges. The paper is evenly toned; the upper left corner is creased and slightly torn. No library stamp and no pencil notes are visible on the front. The picture itself shows the manuscript page with its own wear: rubbed patches in the lower part of the map and around the bottom of the rim, where names cannot be read.