The Mappa Mundi from the Burgo De Osma Beatus (world map from Liébana’s commentary on the Apocalypse).

The Mappa Mundi is a world map inside a religious manuscript that was made around 776 CE by a monk named Beatus of Liébana in Northern Spain (roughly around Asturias), where he wrote commentary about the Book of Revelation, and over the next centuries monasteries kept producing copies, each one including the Mappa Mundi featured inside. This is a specific hand-copy in Burgos de Osma, made in 1086 to teach and be contemplated by other clergy in monasteries. This map was not made for navigation purposes; instead, it was to show the spread of Christianity for missionaries, showing where each of the apostles had brought the Gospel (mainly depicting Asia, Europe, and Africa). The map itself is oriented with east at the top, and its stylistic choices are somewhat aligned with Mozarabic traditions, which are Christian art shaped by Islamic Iberia practices like flat planes and bold colors (although it is debated whether it is Mozarabic by many historians, there is a lot of influence between the two). 

So, how was information design understood and practiced before printing? In this case, pre-print information was handmade and unique. Every copy was made differently, so it wasn’t standard in the sense that all the copies had the same information, format, and scale, as would later be adapted through printing. In Spain, at this point, most information design was also made by scribes in monasteries, their purpose being mainly about teaching and devotion rather than being publicly available to the masses. This one specific example also shows how a “map” wasn’t really about geographical or measurable accuracy; instead, it was about marking their theological ideas.

Considering all of this, there are some questions that get brought up. Since the map is oriented east-up, the east is Asia and the Garden of Eden; at the center is the Mediterranean (The Holy Land), Europe sits in the lower left, and Africa sits in the lower right. So what does this tell us about the monks who inscribed these maps and their perspectives surrounding the rest of the world, especially when calling it the Mappa Mundi (World Map)? The map does not center the place where it was made or the correct geographical location; instead, it centers the place of most importance to them at the time, which was the holy land, thus implying that in a World Map, the center didn’t correlate with real geography or national importance, but rather with religious importance based around the sacredness of the land, thus making information design inherently religious in Spain (given these designs were also solely scribed by monks). 

Another interesting question I looked into was the category of Mozarabic style shaping this piece; there’s a lot of debate surrounding whether these Christian scribes were truly influenced by Islamic art, given the “concern” that a map celebrating the spread of Christianity would carry the essence of Al-Andalus or Islamic art. But a few historians point out that there are horseshoe arches (a signature Islamic architectural style), a preference for geometric ornaments, and flat colors, which are all main preference choices in Al-Andalus art. Other historians say that labeling this Mozarabic, when they were manuscripts made in the Christian North, is inaccurate, as it also drew influence from Visigothic art. So the label is blurry and complicates the idea of a purely Christian Spanish identity.