The Mystery of the Fool’s Cap Map of the World

I think most people would look at the two extremeties on the head and say these are horns and that Satan must be involved.

However, I then took a closer look and noticed the balls on the end of the extensions, more like a jester, or the typical tarot picture interpretation of "The Fool" card, which would seem to be in keeping with the name of the picture.

From wikipedia "The Fool is the spirit in search of experience. He represents the mystical cleverness bereft of reason within us, the childlike ability to tune into the inner workings of the world."

This would also seem to be in keeping with the map. IE, in search of experience and the inner workings of the world".

Very nice find, I'll do some more digging on this for sure. Flagged

It appears that in the Middle Ages, The Fool, or court jester, was the only one allowed to challenge authority of power and get away with it.

Given the power of the Catholic Church at the time (that still believed the Earth was flat) maybe this map was a direct challenge to that authority, one of the first "round Earth" maps, and this could explain why the origin of the map is so ambiguous. It's likely that if the Catholic Church got hold of the author, they would have probably have been burned at the stake by the Inquisition.

No one expected that. [\end monty python reference]

By diguising the map as a Jester, the map maker might have been thinking that he could directly challenge the authority of the Catholic Church in a somewhat safe manner.

Originally posted by babybunnies
Thanks - never heard of this before.

1580 - 1590? There are lots of things on this map that they shouldn't have known about at that time, such as an accurate depiction of antarctica.

You should look at a real world map sometime. That's not an accurate depiction of Antarctica. In fact, it is a representation of a long-standing (at the time) cartographical tradition - that of depicting a "Terra Australis" near the southern pole.

"Terra Australis," which means "Southern land," is (was) a continent presumed for a long time to exist there. The original purpose for this presumption was that, with all the land surface we know about above the Equator, there had to be a "balancing" amount of land South of the Equator. In fact, it had to be so, or the Earth would tip over.

I kid you not.

Eventually, cartographers just put it there anyway, even after we knew the Earth couldn't tip over.

On the map, it states "Terra Australis Nondum Cognita." That was Fineus' name for it. It translates as "the Unknown Land of the South."
IOW, the map itself tells you right there on it's face that Antarctica was unknown at the time.

The notion of Terra Australis was introduced by Aristotle.[3] His ideas were later expanded by Ptolemy (1st century AD), who believed that the Indian Ocean was enclosed on the south by land, and that the lands of the Northern Hemisphere should be balanced by land in the south.[1] Marcus Tullius Cicero used the term cingulus australis ("southern zone") in referring to the Antipodes in Somnium Scipionis ("Dream of Scipio").[4] The land (terra in Latin) in this zone was the Terra Australis.[5]

Legends of Terra Australis Incognita—an "unknown land of the South"—date back to Roman times and before, and were commonplace in medieval geography, although not based on any documented knowledge of the continent. Ptolemy's maps, which became well known in Europe during the Renaissance, did not actually depict such a continent, but they did show an Africa which had no southern oceanic boundary (and which therefore might extend all the way to the South Pole), and also raised the possibility that the Indian Ocean was entirely enclosed by land. Christian thinkers did not discount the idea that there might be land beyond the southern seas, but the issue of whether it could be inhabited was controversial.

The first depiction of Terra Australis on a globe was probably on Johannes Schöner's lost 1523 globe on which Oronce Fine is thought to have based his 1531 double cordiform (heart-shaped) map of the world.[6][7] On this landmass he wrote "recently discovered but not yet completely explored".[8] The body of water beyond the tip of South America is called the “Mare Magellanicum,” one of the first uses of navigator Ferdinand Magellan’s name in such a context.[9]

Source: Wiki

The map dates to sixty or seventy years after Magellan's circumnavigation of the globe. You realize, I hope, that the voyage was successful (though Magellan himself died along the way.) They brought back maps made on the trip. What I mean is, there's nothing on that map that they "shouldn't have" known.

Originally posted by babybunnies
Given the power of the Catholic Church at the time (that still believed the Earth was flat) maybe this map was a direct challenge to that authority, one of the first "round Earth" maps, and this could explain why the origin of the map is so ambiguous. It's likely that if the Catholic Church got hold of the author, they would have probably have been burned at the stake by the Inquisition.

Sorry, but no.

The Catholic Church, and the rest of the educated world, was aware that the Earth is a sphere. This has been the case since the Ancient Greeks proved it was so. The idea that "everyone thought the Earth was flat" is a myth: link

Harte

reply to post by DocHolidaze


Now that you say it..
Does this image refer to the Devils power over the world?

reply to post by babybunnies
Actually I think you might get a little more out of it if you google the inscription from left and right "horns" together: auriculas afini quis non habet

According to this Wiki this phrase was an alteration of an original phrase Wiki that was supposedly done to avoid upsetting Nero.

I am wondering if it might not be used by the author of this map to indicate to those in the know that this map has been altered for some reason. Or maybe it was to mock the idea of world travel, perhaps he got bored making maps for the leaders.

I'm pretty sure I have forgotten a point I wanted to make but since it is quite late here, I will re-think this tomorrow... Leaving this here so others can have it on their minds too.

It could be the staff represents a symbol of royalty (kings,queens etc.) and how they ruled the world, but at the same time represents them as fools..

okay, I had a little more to add that I hadn't pasted in. I was translating the words on the circles over the shoulders and I think these links might shed light if you like to read a little.

stultus factus est omnis homo

The above link translated:

Jeremiah 51:17-18

New American Standard Bible (NASB)

17 All mankind is stupid, devoid of knowledge;
Every goldsmith is put to shame by his [a]idols,
For his molten images are deceitful,
And there is no breath in them.
18 They are worthless, a work of mockery;
In the time of their punishment they will perish.

This one is more interesting and mentions the foolscap map a little. You must scroll down when you get the the site to read content.

universa vanitas onis homo

Seems like it is all about what fools we humans are.

You can use the names of the places to date the map, for example Bergen in Norway on the map was not called "Bergen" before the 1300s at the earliest, before that it was called Bjørgvin. I'm sure many of the other names show the map is even younger.

Another thing that struck me was the amount of islands in the Atlantic Ocean - surely there are not that many.

Originally posted by Mugen

Ok on the OP map, look far left of America, left of supposed Hawaii, "Nova Gui" - is that Australia?

That is New Guinea.

...and speaking of which, how did they get the equator passing exactly right, but the surrounding region horribly wrong?

I find it interesting that a map which is so appropriately inaccurate in its detail, has each Tropic and the Equator hitting EXACTLY at the right location around the entire world (except for Australia is skipped entirely). This drawing was framed by its Tropic and Equator references first, and then the art was filled in, in between these cardinal reference points. Expert start, goofball fill in.

reply to post by jude11

Only the fool sees the world as a map! great image thanks used to be my avatar when I started here.

Originally posted by jude11

I caught the Antarctica piece as well. So what is inferred is that Antarctica has only been iced over for a very short time. Hard to believe.

Consider the thread that says Antarctica is melting like a runaway train. Consider Climate Change can happen in cycles and according to some quite swiftly. We know climate change is a natural occurrence happening on all the planets. We are conditioned from children to believe the it took at least thousands of years for these places to ice over - but what if they are wrong? Man only now within the last 100 years has made the technology that could monitor Antarctica for spans of 100 years or more. I believe it might be possible.

good find s & f never seen that one before i am just amused there is not a dog in the picture somewhere

His eye is single and focused on the world.

2nd.

Thanks. Never seen this map before. First impression though is that it looks just as accurate as anything modern maps give us in terms of accuracy imo, and esp with satellite pictures of the whole entire earth. Still can't seem to find one that really looks legit and not manipulated in some way.

And now that I think of it, this map seems to get the equatorial bulge right!

Originally posted by EnoughAlready10
After looking at the map below and reading the comments people made one thing hit me like a brick to the head. If sailors made this, or it was made for navigational purposes, it was made really poorly; mainly because its not even close to how the earth has looked for the last thousand years. There are 3 major parts of the Fool's Cap Map that stand out as a wtf moment.



1) Look at the rivers in America. The Mississippi River and all of the Great Lakes are MISSING. The St. Lawrence river shows another river originating way up north near the arctic circle connecting to it. This northern branch is not on any current map that i know of.

2) There is a river in Africa that isn't currently in existence.

3) There are way to many islands scattered across the ocean.

Why are the Great Lakes missing? Why are there extra islands in the ocean? Where is the Mississippi River?
Then it dawned on me. The Great Lakes aren't on the map because they are covered by a mile of ice. There are more islands because the ocean is 400 feet lower.

This map is of the Last Glacial Maximum ... 18,000 years ago.



Look at whats in Africa... that river that isn't there now, but is on the Fool's Cap Map. This map matches the Fool's Cap Map much more closely then our current map does. That would mean this map is somewhere in the ballpark of 18,000 to 10,000 years old, when the last ice age was melting.

you decide.

edit on 22-6-2013 by EnoughAlready10 because: silly mistake

i have decided this is an issue of the people who made the thing having little or no knowledge of what the missing areas looked like.
after all they didn't have satellites or planes to do surveys, they had to guess.

like always with this stuff, everyone needs to remember that the people making the maps had preconceived beliefs about how the earth worked, namely that there were landmasses at each pole to balance the planet.

i wouldn't say the 17th century map matches any point in our history, greenland is a tiny sliver of land, not the massive landmass in that iceage image you posted. if that is supposed to be an old map of the earth 10-18 thousand years ago, its still wrong, since there was never a permanent landmass at the north pole.

reply to post by butcherguy


In the link you provided the colors were different
And me being a lil crazy---
Well I flipped the image upside down and
It seemed to show more detail.
Maybe I'm reaching lol
Fun anyway !

Originally posted by Harte

Originally posted by babybunnies
Given the power of the Catholic Church at the time (that still believed the Earth was flat) maybe this map was a direct challenge to that authority, one of the first "round Earth" maps, and this could explain why the origin of the map is so ambiguous. It's likely that if the Catholic Church got hold of the author, they would have probably have been burned at the stake by the Inquisition.

Sorry, but no.

The Catholic Church, and the rest of the educated world, was aware that the Earth is a sphere. This has been the case since the Ancient Greeks proved it was so. The idea that "everyone thought the Earth was flat" is a myth: link

Harte

Not everyone was educated, there were still some that held (ignorantly) to the flat earth theory:

And while The Church may not have as an institution held to that belief, they still held
to basic Heliocentrism, as Geocentrism had little attention until Galileo.

Zacharia Lilio, a canon of the Basilica of St. John Lateran in Rome in 1496. In a section entitled "That the earth is not round" he argues that "when they assert that the earth is round, Ptolemy and Pliny do not add to the evidence, collected on the spot, they simply make a conjecture based solely on reasoning".[131] It is notable that Copernicus, writing only twenty years after Columbus in 1514, dismisses the idea of a flat Earth in two sentences and has to go back to the early Greeks to find a supporter, though he expends more effort on showing that other current ideas were fallacious and demonstrating the sphericity of the earth.[1] en.wikipedia.org...

And it was not until 1822 that The Catholic Church finally lifted its ban on Galileo's Dialogue.
Galileo upon his findings that the planets orbited the sun, not the earth was accused a heretic.
When he ventured further to write "Dialogue on the Two Great Systems of the World.",
Galileo was threatened with tortue after he was ordered to appear before The Inquisition.

Galileos theory:

Since Copernicus places the earth among the movable heavenly bodies, making it a globe like a planet, we may well begin our discussion by examining the Peripatetic steps in arguing the impossibility of that hypothesis; what they are, and how great is their force and effect. For this it is necessary to introduce into nature two substances which differ essentially. www.webexhibits.org...

Much to the embarrasment of The Church, they were quite wrong.

To Silent Thunder, S&F!
Great thread!

Originally posted by burntheships

Originally posted by Harte

Originally posted by babybunnies
Given the power of the Catholic Church at the time (that still believed the Earth was flat) maybe this map was a direct challenge to that authority, one of the first "round Earth" maps, and this could explain why the origin of the map is so ambiguous. It's likely that if the Catholic Church got hold of the author, they would have probably have been burned at the stake by the Inquisition.

Sorry, but no.

The Catholic Church, and the rest of the educated world, was aware that the Earth is a sphere. This has been the case since the Ancient Greeks proved it was so. The idea that "everyone thought the Earth was flat" is a myth: link

Harte

Not everyone was educated, there were still some that held (ignorantly) to the flat earth theory:

And while The Church may not have as an institution held to that belief, they still held
to basic Heliocentrism, as Geocentrism had little attention until Galileo.

Sure, but you have the two terms transposed. I know what you meant.

However, didn't you read the post I was responding to?

Given the power of the Catholic Church at the time (that still believed the Earth was flat) maybe this map was a direct challenge to that authority...

It had nothing to do with geocentrism or heliocentrism, nor does the map this thread is about have anything to do with geocentrism or heliocentrism.

Harte

reply to post by evc1shop


My mistake! I got wrapped up in the images instead of what they were actually near. Thank you for catching that!

Originally posted by evc1shop

Originally posted by QuietSpeech
S&F for sharing this great map.

Call me captain obvious because I have nothing really insightful to say. So instead I will just point out that I can spot only three images in the waters, one looks like a ship off the West Coast of Africa. Another image is off the East Coast of Africa, however I am unable to make out what it is, it looks like a chicken head. The final image I noticed is off of coast of North America, I can't make out what it is but it certainly looks peculiar.

1. Why place the ship in that location vs anywhere else?
2. What is that creature off the coast of North America?
3. What is the one to the East of Africa?

As the map was based off of another possibly more functional version, are these little images used to delight, add hidden meaning, or were they obvious to any known sailor at that time? Say, where the ship is, designating the only known passage from Pacific to the Atlantic?

I think you have confused Africa with the America's. I see a ship to the West of S. America, a swimming chicken thing off the west coast of what is now Mexico and a swimming pit-bull like head with a beak East of South America's tip. Are these what you are referencing?

I do not have any theories yet but wanted to make sure we are all on the same track.
Let me know if I am seeing something other than what you have stated.
ty

Nice spotting.

Too much to see everything in a single glance. The chicken thingy...hmmm?

Very strange and curious indeed.

Peace