Name: Macrobius's 'Commentary on the Dream of Scipio' with Hybrid T-O Map
Author: Ambrosius Macrobius

The Sunderland Collection

 versions of the 'Commentary' are known from as early as the eleventh century, but the work was not printed until 1472 (by Nicolaus Jenson in Venice). The map was included for the first time in the edition of 1483 (Bonino de Bonini, Brescia). Published 29 October 1500. 

Maps that resemble this type, the 'Macrobian' or 'zonal', appear in copies of the 'Commentary' through the Middle Ages, and especially proliferate in manuscripts made in the twelfth century. The present map is a hybrid of the medieval 'Macrobian' type, which illustrates his climactic theories, with new discoveries in how the continents are shaped. The medieval model is preserved in that the map places the known or habitable world in-between two inhabitable zones located at the poles (labelled 'Frigida'). A divided landmass labelled 'Temperata Antipodum Nobis Incognita' is featured in the south of the map, separated from the central 'Alveus Oceani' by the extremely hot 'Perusta' zone. 

Macrobius’s climatic theory differs slightly from classical models offered by authors like Cicero and 

. Whereas Cicero thought the southern zone was habitable and Isidore noted that 'the Antipodes are fabulously said to dwell', Macrobius considered that the heat of the torrid zone made passage to the Antipodes impossible.

This world map illustrates Macrobius's (fl. 400 AD) climactic theories within his 'Commentary on The Dream of Scipio'. In this theory, the Earth is divided into five zones: the habitable world is placed in-between inhabitable zones located at the poles which are labelled 'Frigida' and another extremely hot 'Perusta' zone. Maps resembling this one can be found in medieval copies of Macrobius's work, but here the geography is fused with contemporary cartographical trends, in that the shapes of the continents in the upper half resemble those modelled after Ptolemy. The world is oriented north and surrounded by oceans; the known - and labelled - landmasses in the northern hemisphere are balanced by a symmetrical ‘Terra Incognita’ ('unknown land') in the south. Small windheads surround the Earth, with floral decorations in each corner.

The 'Commentary on the Dream of Scipio', originally composed around 400 CE, recounts Macrobius’s dream in which Scipio Aemilianus is visited by the spirit of his grandfather, Scipio Africanus, the conqueror of Carthage. The older Scipio takes the younger up to the heavens and grants him a new perspective of the Earth.

Macrobius’s 'Commentary' influenced European thought for many generations. It was informed by Neo-Platonic perspectives on the theories of dreams, the mystic properties of numbers, the nature of the soul, and the relationship between astronomy and music. Macrobius’s speculations on the insignificant size of the Earth in relation to the Cosmos and the ephemerality of life were especially significant to European explorers like Columbus of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.

Hybrid T-O map

Textual page with small geometric diagram 

Zodiac diagram

Circular diagram

Textual page 

This version of Ambrosius Macrobius’s 'Commentary on the Dream of Scipio' includes a hybrid T-O world map, which combines medieval climatic theory of the habitable and uninhabitable zones with Ptolemaic projections.