A Map of Cosmographia

Start here

If we’re not marvelling at the beauty of this world, then we’re not paying attention.

Cosmography as a word is no longer in vogue, but it once denoted attempts to map the entire cosmos. It differed from geography in that its scope included the celestial — other worlds, the heavens, creation — alongside terrestrial concerns like cartography, people, flora, and fauna.

In essence, traditional cosmography was an attempt to unite history, geography, anthropology, ethnology, zoology, and theology all in one; a preposterously vast, yet dazzling endeavour.

This publication is an attempt to do the same.

Subscribe to

Cosmographia

and together we will explore the world, via history, myth, and art.

After all, our time on earth is finite. Let us not squander it. Let us learn instead.

Do you like travel? History? Myth? Me too.

Hi. I'm

M. E. Rothwell

.

Ever since I was given a globe as a small child, I have been obsessed with faraway places, old maps, and stories of adventurous explorers. As a teenager, I spent hours staring at distant place names on the six-foot map of the world I had pinned to my bedroom wall. I always used to wonder: Who lived there? What were they like? What did they do?

These questions led me first into dusty books, then to travel, and now to

Cosmographia

. Here I share my lifelong fascination with the distant corners of the globe, its myriad cultures, peoples, and myths.

Subscriber Testimonials:

Popular Free Reads:

Full Index:

By Continent:

• Europe

• Africa

• Asia

• North America

• South America

• Oceania

• Arctic & Antarctica

By Discipline:

• Geographia

  • Mapping the world, one place a time.

• Historia

  • Longreads diving deep into world history.

• Aesthetica

  • Mapping the beautiful.

• Astrologia

  • Journeys among the stars.

• Philosophia

  • Mapping wisdom.

• Mathēmatica

  • Forays into the history of Mathematics.

• Theologia

  • Mapping the gods.

By Series:

• Atlas’ Notebook

  • Mapping the world via art, poetry, cartography, literature, and photography.

• Venus’ Notebook

  • A compendium of the beautiful.

• Gaia’s Notebook

  • The Earth in all her glory.

• Terra Phantasma

  • Stories of mysterious ‘phantom lands’ that have appeared on maps through the ages.

• Manūscriptum

  • History’s most beautiful documents.

• Holy Land

  • Answering the question: How did the Holy Land come to be holy?

• The Story of Rome

  • The legend of Rome’s founding.

• The World in Paint

  • The great cities of the world, as seen by her finest artists.

• Cosmicomics

  • Short pieces of cosmic magical realism inspired by Italo Calvino’s Cosmicomics.