Virtual Mappa, or VM for short, is a collaborative digital humanities project that collects, annotates and networks medieval mappamundi using the Digital Mappa resource. The project is open access, hosted and published by the Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, and in collaboration with the British Library. The project is currently directed by Martin Foys and Heather Wacha, and continues to grow as new contributors join the project and edit new medieval maps.
Maps currently in the project
The project currently includes editions of thirteen mappamundi:
Traditionally, western European medieval mappaemundi, or world maps, have been divided into two categories: T-O maps and zonal maps. T-O maps are names as such because of their tripartite structure - a T rests inside an O, dividing the world into the three known continents. At the top is Asia, the bottom left quadrant contains areas of Europe, and the bottom right quadrant Africa. The orientation of T-O maps is usually shifted 90 degreesto the left, such that the cardinal direction of east, i.e. paradise, India and parts of Asia for a medieval mind are located at the very top of the map. Zonal maps, however, are usually oriented with north at the top, and the world is divided into four latitudinal zones that represent climate and indicate appropriateness for habitation. Both types of medieval maps are included in the Virtual Mappa project.
The project came out of digital humanities research by project leader Martin Foys of medieval artifacts and media that resisted traditional modes of print-based scholarship. Medieval mappamundi represented a problem of representation and analysis that digital tools and techniques could help address. The digital humanities resource of digital annotation and linking tools that was developed to collect, annotate and network medieval maps was Digital Mappa, which is now its own freely-available online workspace and digital publishing platform. As part of the Digital Mappa platform, Virtual Mappa has been funded by grants by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
