ï~~Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists 49 (2012) 363-369
Richard J.A. Talbert, Rome's World: The Peutinger Map Reconsidered, in
association with Tom Elliott, assisted by Nora Harris, Gannon Hubbard, David O'Brien and Graham Shepherd, with a contribution by
Martin Steinmann. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010.
xviii + 357 pages. ISBN 978-0-521-76480-3.
Any author of a scholarly book tends to think that it is something new
and extraordinary. However, T(albert)'s claim that up to the publication of his
book about the Peutinger Map (Tabula Peutingeriana, henceforth TP) - the
only existing medieval copy of an ancient world map - "no full scale presentation and analysis had appeared since World War I" (p. xiii) does not conform
to the facts. The 1976 edition of the map by the present reviewer' is at least a
"full scale presentation" and Luciano Bosio's book from 19832 is without doubt
a profound "analysis." But T. rightly points out that the majority of scholars
still use the old edition by Miller,3 which is based on the drawings of Christoph Scheyb and Salomon Kleiner, published as early as 1753. This should
now become obsolete, since T. has put a digital version of the complete TP on
the internet,4 so that his book also has the character of an accompanying text.
The work comprises five extensive chapters and a conclusion, the latter
dealing with the place of the TP in ancient and medieval cartography and
seeking traces of the TP, and possibly also of lost copies, in medieval literature.
The first chapter discusses the history and the various publications of the
extant copy, from the editio princeps by Markus Welser in Johannes Moretus'
' Ekkehard Weber, Tabula Peutingeriana: Codex Vindobonensis 324 (Graz 1976). T.'s
claim that with my (1: 1, that is "full scale") facsimile edition "color photographs had
eventually been published" (p. xiii; my italics) is, however, misleading: in the 1930s color
photographs were made at the request of Benito Mussolini, which were published by
Annalina and Mario Levi, La "Tabula Peutingeriana" (Roma 1978). Admittedly, the
colors of those days will hardly meet modern standards.
2 Luciano Bosio, La Tabula Peutingeriana, una descrizione pittorica del mondo antico
(Rimini 1983).
3Konrad Miller, Die Weltkarte des Castorius, genannt die Peutingersche Tafel (Ravensburg 1887), and Die Peutingersche Tafel (Ravensburg 1888, enlarged edition Stuttgart
1916, followed by several reprints). An English version is Map of the World by Castorius
Generally Known as Peutinger's Tabula (London and Edinburgh 1892).
4 www.cambridge.org/us/talbert/index.html. Since the former rotulus was dispersed
in 1863, the single sheets show slight contortions, so that they do not fit together any
longer; but this does not affect research. The TP without scholarly commentary can
be found at euratlas.net/cartogra/peutinger and directly from the Austrian National
Library (OeNB) at data.onb.ac.at/rec/AL00161171 (including the backs of the single
sheets).
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