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World/ Jerusalem. BUNTING, H. [Magdeburg, 1581] Die ganze Welt in ein Kleeblatt…10 ¼ x 14 ¼ inches. Woodcut with fine hand color; side margins extended with very slight loss, reinforced fold separations at bottom, else excellent. Richly colored example of one of the most distinctive cartographic curiosities ever produced: a woodcut, cloverleaf-shaped map of the world with Jerusalem at the center. The map evokes the style of a medieval T-O mappa mundi, with each of the leaves of the clover representing the continents of Asia, Africa and Europe in an approximate T shape and Jerusalem at the center. America occupies the lower lefthand corner, and the Red Sea is named in the notch between Africa and Asia. Bunting’s is the only map available to the collector today with this striking configuration. However, the map’s design is in fact a celebration of the cartographer's native city of Hanover, whose trefoil arms provided its inspiration. Nevertheless, the map’s placement of Jerusalem at its center reflects that city’s pivotal role in Christian thinking toward the end of the 16th century and also highlights the subject of the book in which the map was published, Itinerarium Sacrae, which was a study of the Holy Land. Shirley 142; Nebenzahl, Maps of the Holy Land, pp. 88-9.
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