Mapping paradise: a history of heaven on earth

Abstract

Throughout history, humans have searched for paradise. When early Christians adopted the Hebrew Bible, and with it the story of Genesis, the of Eden became an idyllic habitat for all mankind. Medieval Christians believed paradise was a place on earth, different from the world, yet part of it, situated in real geography and indicated on maps. From the Renaissance through to the Enlightenment, the mapping of paradise validated the authority of Holy Scripture and supported Christian faith. But, from the early nineteenth century onwards, the question of the exact location of paradise was left not to theologians, but to the layman. And, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, there is still no end to the stream of theories on the exact position of the mythical Garden of Eden. In his scholarly and immensely engaging history of the cartography of paradise, Alessandro Scafi journeys from the beginning of Christianity to the present day. Instead of dismissing the medieval belief in an earthly paradise as a picturesque legend, and the cartography of paradise as merely a medieval superstition, Scafi explores the intellectual conditions that made the mapping of paradise possible. The challenge for mapmakers, he argues, was to make visible a place that was geographically inaccessible and yet real, remote in time and yet still the scene of an essential episode in the history of salvation. As the absorbing story unfolds, each episode is richly illustrated by contemporary maps, many illuminated by the author's unique cartographic drawings.

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