Westrem, Scott D. The Hereford Map: A Transcription and Translation of the Legends with Commentary. Terrarum orbis: History of the Representation of Space in Text and Image, vol. 1. Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2001. 476 p., maps. Hardcover. ISBN: 2-503-51056-6. EUR 70.

Kline, Naomi Reed. A Wheel of Memory: The Hereford Mappamundi. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2001. 1 CD-ROM. ISBN: 0-472-00274-0. $59.95.

The first year of the new millennium produced two very different treatments of one of the great cartographic treasures of the last millennium. The map in Hereford Cathedral, England, produced about the year 1300, is the largest surviving mappamundi, and its general features are described and illustrated in most histories of cartography. The two sources reviewed here enable us to get “up close and personal” to the great map by providing historical background and detailed readings of all the map’s inscriptions. Scott Westrem’s book is a traditional scholarly monograph, handsomely printed on glossy paper and with 24 pages of color photographs of sections of the map and a folding reproduction of the entire map laid in the back. After a succinct, carefully documented introduction to the history of the map, its sources and analogues, and the editorial principles of this edition, we get to the heart of the matter: 427 pages with full transcriptions, translations, and commentary on each of the 1,091 legends that fill the map and its borders. The legends are keyed to numbers on the color plates. The work concludes with four appendices: an “Index to Primary and Secondary Sources Cited in the Commentary” which includes, for example, five columns each of citations to the Bible and Isidore of Seville; a “Table of Correspondences between the Hereford Map and the Expositio Mappae Mundi” (a recently discovered medieval text); indexes to key words on the map, in both the original language and English; and “Identifications of Depictions without Legends or Mislabeled.” This is a rich, solid scholarly volume that will be an essential tool for any future work on the Hereford Map.

But by way of presenting the map to a wider audience and stretching the academic envelope a bit, Naomi Kline has put together a delightful CD on the map that manages to be intellectually rigorous, graphically compelling, rich in detail, and fun to use. After an animated introduction, with original musical accompaniment, the user sees a “contents page” listing 4 “chapters” and 12 appendices. The first chapter provides an introduction to “Wheels of Memory,” various uses of rota as mnemonic devices in the medieval world. The second chapter treats mappaemundi in general, while the third provides a history of the Hereford map. Chapter 4, “A Frame of Reference,” provides a guided tour of the visual and textual riches that surround the map proper. Other sections, which I’ve called “appendices,” provide illustrated essays on the map’s geography and its illustrations of, and references to, animals, strange races, Alexander the Great, the Bible, and the crusades. For scholarly apparatus, one clicks on the headings for glossary, bibliography, image sources, credits, and “help.” A final “browse” feature gives alphabetical access to all the legends on the map (1,070, by Kline’s count), with translations and a blow-up of the feature on the map.

With a book, it’s pretty easy to get a sense of the overall scope and level of detail in the coverage. With a CD, it’s easy to see individual trees, harder to get a sense of the forest. The sheer amount of information contained here, and the enormous variety of ways to query it, gives this reviewer pause; the hour I spent with it only scratched the surface. Suffice it to say that Kline’s innovative package presents much to inform and educate and may well be a model for the presentation of maps in this format. Westrem’s commentaries tend to be longer and more detailed. He also keys his discussions to high-quality photographs of the original manuscript, whereas Kline’s reproductions come from a redrawn facsimile. The facsimile is highly accurate and generally perfectly adequate, but there are instances in which Westrem can give a more nuanced reading. To take just one example, looking up “Satirii” in Kline’s “browse” mode, one gets a about 170 words, including a quotation from Isidore’s description of satyrs and a nice blow up of the drawing with the single word legend “Satirii.” In Westrem, we get about 250 words of commentary including the information “the legend was originally described in two lines of text, with approximately four words on the first line and three on the second, which are now illegible even with ultra-violet light,” and indeed, the blurred remnants of these lines can be seen in his reproduction.

Despite much intellectual overlap, the works are quite different in conception and surprisingly complimentary. Both belong in any serious collection on the history of cartography.

Robert W. Karrow, Jr.