A vivid piece of cartographical design (Shirley)

Published in the first edition of the ‘Rudimentum novitiorum’: the first chronicle of the world, and the first work to contain printed maps that are more than just diagrams, pre-dating the first published atlas, the Bologna Ptolemy, by two years.

The circular world map, oriented with east at the top, derives from a Christianised medieval tradition without any reference to either Ptolemaic or portolan sources, and is a “vivid piece of cartographical design” (Shirley).
The author of the ‘Rudimentum novitorum’ is unknown, but the chronicle was probably conceived and written by a theologian. The book comprises the six ages of the world, from the Creation and the earliest urban development, to the Christian period.

In the world map, observed locations are represented relatively, but without admitting actual measurement, and are set within a reassuring and suitable array of mythological artifacts. What makes the world map of the ‘Rudimentum’ so fascinating, and, at the same time, what is so puzzling about it, is the fact that it presents plausible geographic knowledge within 'the unyielding outlines of the T-O schema' (Campbell): it is as if the modern, 'tangible' world has been shoe-horned into a circular medieval world view. There are stylised elements that show each continent as an island and each country as a separate hill, surmounted either with a sovereign's bust or with the conventional symbol for a town separated by imaginary waterways, but these are real places and they are set in (reasonably) accurate relation to one another.
The mythological aspects of the map include illustrations of the phoenix, the Tree of the Sun and the Moon, and the figures of the Devil and the Armless man. Traditionally, medieval maps were bounded at the west and east by the Pillars of Hercules and Paradise respectively. The ‘Rudimentum’ places the pillars astride the entrance to the Mediterranean and shows, at the other extremity, an enclosed mound from which flows the four rivers of Paradise.
It is also worth noting that, next to Sweden (Gothia), 'Vinland' is named on the world map. This is, however, likely to be Finland, as opposed to a representation of the Viking landings in the New World.
Like the T-O maps that precede it, the ‘Rudimentum’ world map records the three principal lands of the world: Asia, Africa, and Europe, but with specific countries and regions of the world recorded. The circular map does not contradict a flat earth theory. “At the top, in the farthest region of the East, we see Eden, shown as a mountain from which the four rivers of Paradise flow (the Ganges, Nile, Tigris, and Euphrates). Columbus believed he had reached the mouths of these sacred rivers at the outskirts of Paradise when entering the Gulf of Paria, on the shoulder of South America, during his third voyage” Suarez).
However, in Eden, are not Adam and Eve, but rather two fully-clothed men. To the right of them, ie to the south, is Tabrobana, now Sri Lanka. Beyond there is Ophir, where Solomon’s ships brought gold and other riches from. Opposite, in the north, is the ‘Mae Amasoneon’. At the bottom of the map, are the Pillars of Hercules, the Strait of Gibraltar, the entrance to the western ocean.
The influence of the “Crusades is found in the placement of the Holy Land at the center of the map, a common feature of post-Crusades mappaemundi, and in the figure of a king, holding a book, to the northeast of Ophir. This man is Prester John, whose mythical Christian stronghold was a brilliant hoax which became the focus of a search which helped motivate Renaissance exploration…Just east of Prester John is the Tree of the Sun and Moon. This oracular tree was shown to Alexander the Great while far into his conquest of the East. At dusk, the Sun Tree (which was masculine) and the Moon Tree (which was feminine) spoke to Alexander in an Indian language. He ordered the townsfolk to translate the trees' words, but they refused, for the trees had foretold of Alexander's death. In another version of the story, the two trees also spoke Greek, and told Alexander that he would die in May in Babylon by the hand of one of his own people, but refused to alter fate by revealing the name of the traitor” (Suarez).