Carta Marina

Olaus Magnus' Carta Marina:

One of the oldest known maps of the Scandinavian countries and the region around the Baltic Sea is the 1539 Carta Marina (Map of the Sea), a magnificent chart created by Olaus Magnus, an exiled Swedish priest and cartographer living in Italy at the time. The map is filled to every corner with rich, painstakingly detailed drawings of the fantastical beasties that active sailor imaginations populated the seas with: winged fish, sea-dragons, hirsute many-eyed trout, galleon-sized snakes and other monsters worthy of even Hieronymus Bosch.

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