{"id":6102,"date":"2017-11-21T13:30:24","date_gmt":"2017-11-21T18:30:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/?p=6102"},"modified":"2017-11-21T10:09:16","modified_gmt":"2017-11-21T15:09:16","slug":"horror-vacui-the-fear-of-blank-spaces","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2017\/11\/horror-vacui-the-fear-of-blank-spaces\/","title":{"rendered":"Horror Vacui: The Fear of Blank Spaces"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Olaus Magnus, Carta Marina, 1539. Detail. James Ford Bell Library.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In an article I published in 2013<\/a>, I argued that one key difference between fantasy maps and the real-world medieval and early modern maps they purport to imitate is blank spaces: fantasy maps are full of blank spaces (that which is not in the story is not on the map), whereas real-world maps were covered in cartouches, sea monsters, inset illustrations and other embellishments. One of my sources for that article was a book by Chet Van Duzer: Sea Monsters on Medieval and Renaissance Maps<\/em><\/a> (reviewed here<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Recently Van Duzer has been giving talks on the very subject of the lack of empty spaces on old maps. Which, as you can imagine, is very relevant to my interests. In October he spoke on the subject at the Barry Lawrence Ruderman Conference on Cartography<\/a>, and earlier this month he gave a similar talk at the New York Map Society<\/a>. Here’s the abstract from the Ruderman Conference:<\/p>\n

Historians of cartography occasionally refer to cartographers\u2019 horror vacui, that is, their fear or hesitancy to leave spaces blank on maps that might be filled with decorations. Some scholars have denied that this impulse was a factor in the design of maps, but the question has never been examined carefully. In this talk I will undertake such an examination, showing that horror vacui was indeed an important factor in the design of maps, at least for some cartographers, from the sixteenth to the early eighteenth century. Some of the factors that motivated cartographers\u2019 concern about empty spaces will also be examined, as will maps by cartographers who evidently did not experience this fear. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries maps began to be thought of as more purely scientific instruments, cartographic decoration declined generally, and cartographers managed to restrain their concern about spaces lacking decoration in the interest of presenting their work as modern and professional.\u200b<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But since I couldn’t make it to those events, all I had was that tantalizing abstract. (Publish something!) Fortunately, we now have a little more:\u00a0Greg Miller has written a piece about Van Duzer’s research<\/a> over on the National Geographic<\/em>\u00a0All Over the Map blog.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In an article I published in 2013, I argued that one key difference between fantasy maps and the real-world medieval and early modern maps they purport to imitate is blank spaces: fantasy maps are full… More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"link","meta":{"autoblue_enabled":true,"autoblue_custom_message":"","autoblue_shares":[],"autoblue_post_url":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[1015,312,1086,247,1085],"class_list":["post-6102","post","type-post","status-publish","format-link","hentry","category-antique-maps","tag-cartouches","tag-history-of-cartography","tag-horror-vacui","tag-sea-monsters","tag-van-duzer","post_format-post-format-link"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1788807,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2020\/05\/with-savage-pictures-fill-their-gaps-chet-van-duzer-on-horror-vacui\/","url_meta":{"origin":6102,"position":0},"title":"‘With Savage Pictures Fill Their Gaps’: Chet Van Duzer on Horror Vacui","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"4 May 2020","format":"video","excerpt":"https:\/\/youtu.be\/Dg5UUGzossI Chet Van Duzer\u2019s presentation about the lack of empty spaces on old maps\u2014horror vacui\u2014at the November 2017 meeting of the New York Map Society has now been uploaded to YouTube. As I\u2019ve said before, the subject of empty spaces on maps is of considerable interest to my own research\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Antique Maps"","block_context":{"text":"Antique Maps","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/antique-maps\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/img.youtube.com\/vi\/Dg5UUGzossI\/0.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1816243,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2023\/06\/new-books-on-early-modern-maps\/","url_meta":{"origin":6102,"position":1},"title":"New Books on Early Modern Maps","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"22 June 2023","format":"link","excerpt":"Three books that have come out or are coming out this year that deal with maps of early modern Europe: Navigations: The Portuguese Discoveries and the Renaissance by Malyn Newitt (Reaktion, 24 Apr). \u201cNavigations re-examines the Portuguese voyages of discovery by placing them in their medieval and Renaissance settings. It\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Antique Maps"","block_context":{"text":"Antique Maps","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/antique-maps\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/navigations-newitt-100x150.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/navigations-newitt-100x150.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/navigations-newitt-100x150.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/navigations-newitt-100x150.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/navigations-newitt-100x150.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":5586,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2013\/06\/review-sea-monsters-on-medieval-and-renaissance-maps\/","url_meta":{"origin":6102,"position":2},"title":"Review: Sea Monsters on Medieval and Renaissance Maps","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"18 June 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Chet Van Duzer\u2019s Sea Monsters on Medieval and Renaissance Maps does what it says on the tin: you really will find out more than you ever wanted to about the sea monsters that appeared on medieval and renaissance maps. (Van Duzer defines them as anything that a contemporary reader would\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Antique Maps"","block_context":{"text":"Antique Maps","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/antique-maps\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/sea-monsters-maps-283x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5651,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2013\/08\/here-be-blank-spaces\/","url_meta":{"origin":6102,"position":3},"title":"My New Article on Fantasy Maps: ‘Here Be Blank Spaces’","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"26 August 2013","format":"link","excerpt":"My short essay on fantasy maps, \"Here Be Blank Spaces: Vaguely Medieval Fantasy Maps\" appears in issue #300 of The New York Review of Science Fiction, out today. I wrote it in response to several books I read rather closely together earlier this year: Reinhart's Art of the Map, Van\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Maps and Literature"","block_context":{"text":"Maps and Literature","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/maps-and-literature\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5579,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2013\/05\/review-the-art-of-the-map\/","url_meta":{"origin":6102,"position":4},"title":"Review: The Art of the Map","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"28 May 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"In The Art of the Map: An Illustrated History of Map Elements and Embellishments, retired history professor Dennis Reinhartz explores the design elements at the margins of western maps from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries. It is both a lavishly illustrated book and a close interrogation of the design\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Antique Maps"","block_context":{"text":"Antique Maps","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/antique-maps\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/art-of-the-map-275x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1840139,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2025\/05\/fantasy-mapmaking-tools\/","url_meta":{"origin":6102,"position":5},"title":"Fantasy Mapmaking Tools","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"2 May 2025","format":"link","excerpt":"I\u2019ve been making note of procedural fantasy map generators for a while now. These are tools that generate a map of an imaginary landscape, town or dungeon, mostly (but not necessarily exclusively) for the purposes of role-playing games like Dungeons & Dragons. The latest to come to my attention is\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Games"","block_context":{"text":"Games","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/games\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6102","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6102"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6102\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6105,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6102\/revisions\/6105"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}