Mappæ Mundi
The Tabula Rogeriana
The world's finest map — drawn upside down.
- Map
- Tabula Rogeriana
- Mapmaker
- Muhammad al-Idrisi
- Date
- 1154
- Held by
- Made for Roger II of Sicily
Format
The full-resolution scan, color-managed to the source — yours to print, study, and explore.
Size
$29.00
The story
After fifteen years of work, the geographer al-Idrisi presented King Roger II of Sicily with the most accurate map of the world anyone had yet made — and drew it upside down. In the tradition of Islamic cartography, south sits at the top and Mecca is given pride of place, so Europe hangs at the bottom and Africa crowns the world. Al-Idrisi had calculated the Earth's circumference to within a tenth of the truth; his map would not be bettered for three hundred years. The known world, seen from the other side.
About this reproduction
- A faithful reproduction of a public-domain map held by Made for Roger II of Sicily — the work is centuries out of copyright.
- Printed to order on archival cotton-rag or textured laid stock, pigment inks rated 100+ years.
- Color-managed to the source scan; we correct nothing and invent nothing.
- Ships in 5–10 business days, rolled in a heavy-wall tube (framed and linen-backed pieces ship flat-packed).
- If it arrives less than perfect, we reprint or refund — your choice.
Why our maps cost more than a poster: we print from the highest-resolution scans in existence, at sizes where the engraving itself becomes visible — the sea monsters, the tiny place-names, the burin lines — on stock made to outlive its owner.
