Speculative modeling as a methodological technique for identifying the representation principles of worldview ideas in the medieval cartography illumination

Abstract

Medieval cartography had a wide functionality. The world map served as a historiographical and didactic tool, a spiritual guide, a mnemonic matrix, a visual encyclopedia, a philosophical model, a means of meditative practices, a manuscript illustration, an exegetical and moralizing text, a method for transmitting of narrative information, ideological and pedagogical concepts. To process a vast layer of data contained in authoritative verbal sources, the rumination method was used by a medieval cartographer. And to create the map itself, it was necessary to carry out preliminary speculative modeling and solve the tasks of the artistic reproduction of the world model on a two-dimensional picture plane. An experiment in the humanities, including art history, is not a widespread method, but its application, in that case, can be effective. Taking into account the information contained in main verbal sources and following the path of the medieval cartographer, a speculative world model meeting the basic medieval worldview requirements was created in the article. Following the experiment, the basic representational principles of the image of the world were successfully identified, as well as the artistic techniques with which those principles could be applied on the visual plane were determined.