Utopia depicta - mapy krain idealnych

Autor podejmuje próbę zebrania i przeanalizowania kartograficznych przedstawień krain idealnych, czyli tzw. utopii. Począwszy od I wydania Utopii Thomasa More'a (1516), aż po koniec wieku XVIII pojawiały się na rynku kartograficznym rozmaite próby opisania wymyślonej krainy za pomocą mapy. Jak się wydaje, wszystkie one stanowiły swego rodzaju zabawę intelektualną między autorem a odbiorcą, będącą integralnie powiązaną z rzeczywistością społeczno-polityczną, w jakiej tworzył autor.

Along with the first publication of Thomas More's Utopia in 1516, there appeared in cartography the motif of the map of 'ideal lands', in other words a cartographic commentary on a book. The first anonymously done map was in the third edition of the book substituted with a map by Ambrosius Holbein. After 'erasing' the content other than cartographic we are left with a skull - the iconographic symbol of memento mon. After Plato, who was the first to place the ideal land on an island, other cartographers used it, including Abraham Ortelius, author of the 1596 map. At the end of the 17th century, there appeared Johann Andreas Schnebelin's satire, whose author described problems and faults of contemporary world in a long commentary to Johann Baptiste Homann's map of an utopian continent. This way of commenting on reality was willingly used by the biggest publishing houses - J. B. Homann's in Nuremberg and M. Seutter's in Augsburg. Maps of ideal lands or eudemonias were a cartographic and iconographic way to express one's opinion about reality. They were a form of intellectual play for the educated elite of Renaissance Europe and a weapon to fight slothful society for moralizers of the Enlightenment.