The printer Conrad Winters de Homborch, was the first printer in Cologne and is thought to have trained the Englishman William Caxton in the art of printing. His edition of the ‘Etymologies’ is the third printed edition of this work; its predecessors: Augsburg (1472) and Strasbourg (c. 1473)

The T-O style map appeared for centuries in manuscripts of the ‘Etymologies’. Conrad Winters de Homborch’s version is a variation of that used in Zainer’s 1472 first edition (see: SC-B-1472-Isidore-Etymologies-1Ed-TOMap).

The T-O map shows a circular earth surrounded by a nondescript Ocean (Mare oceanvm) and divided into three parts by T-shaped bodies of water. Asia occupies the top half of the globe with Africa and Europe in the bottom right and left corners respectively. Following Biblical tradition, the names of Noah’s son’s are labeled below their corresponding continents: Sem (Asia), Cham (Africa), and Jafet (Europe). The cardinal directions are also given.

Winters de Homborch’s map adds greater cartographic precision to Zainer’s 1472 edition. Whereas Zainer’s “T” is simply labeled the ‘great sea’ and the descender as the Mediterranean, in Winters de Homborch’s “T” the ‘great sea’ is broken into its constituents: the River Nile (Nilus fluminus) as the right arm of the cross-bar, and the River Tanais (i.e. the Don) as the left arm of the cross-bar. There is an additional, triangular element, the ‘Meotites Palus’, that is, the Don River Delta. This detail derives from the text. Following Pliny, Isidore explains in book XIII that the River Don, descending from the mountains of Scythia, separates Europe from Asia, running between the two parts of the world and flowing into the Black Sea: ‘qui ex Riphaeis silvis veniens dirimit Europam ab Asia, inter duas mundi partes medius currens atque in Pontum fluens’ (13.21).

 (c. 560 – 636) was the first Christian intellectual of the late-antique era to create an encyclopaedia summarizing the natural world and its etymology. Organized within the medieval quadrivium – the second curricular stage of liberal arts education comprising arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy – Isidore’s ‘Etymologies’ and his other major work ‘On the Nature of Things’ preserved a treasury of natural philosophy and became one of the main sources of classical learning in the Middle Ages. 

Isidore’s work on geography (book XIV) is a synthesis of Classical scholars, namely Gaius Julius Solinus and Pliny the Elder with Christian authors such as Augustine, Ambrose, and Jerome. Isidore’s geography divides the earth into three parts, Asia occupying half the globe with Europe and Africa each occupying a quarter. Europe is separated from Africa by the Mediterranean, and Europe from Asia by the Volga River. All three continents are encircled by a vast sea. 

Isidore believed that the Earth was spherical in shape, but it remains unclear if he understood it as a globe or a flat disk. In etymological terms, he explains that the earth’s description as ‘orbis’ was derived from ‘orbiculus’ meaning a small wheel. The Earth thus resembles a wheel in its roundness. Whether this wheel could be traversed was less certain. Isidore dismisses the idea of the so-called ‘antipodes’ for instance on the opposite side of the world, considering them legendary with a lack of evidence. 

Isidore's round map, which is essentially that of the Greek philosopher, Anaximander, continued to be used through the Middle Ages by authors such as the ninth-century bishop Rabanus Maurus who compared the habitable part of the northern hemisphere with a wheel and the twelfth-century scholar 

 who argued definitively that the earth was spherical (see SC-M-c1200-Anon-Conches).

’s ‘Etymologies’ this work contains an updated woodcut of the first edition printed in 1472. Asia is shown at the top, Europe on the left, and Africa on the right. The continents are divided by the Nile and Don rivers and the Mediterranean and surrounded by a world ocean. The names of the sons of Noah, who were believed to have settled the world after a great flood, are also shown. Unusually for a T-O map, this example depicts triangular areas that describe the rivers and Mediterranean Sea more fully. The lower triangle represents the Don River Delta flowing into the Black Sea. 

Also noted for containing the first printed reference to arithmetic, the ‘Etymologies’ provided medieval and Renaissance scholars an invaluable single source of late classical scientific knowledge and lexicography. In addition to geography, the work also treats mathematics, astronomy, geography, meteorology, geology, botany, agriculture, human anatomy, medicine, shipbuilding, architecture, and other technological subjects.

Isidore’s ‘Etymologies’ retained much authority into the sixteenth century, but early printed works, such as Conrad Winters de Homborch’s edition, mark the coming twilight of his influence. Throughout the Middle Ages, Isidore’s status as an authority was derived from cultural and religious reverence for written tradition (‘scriptura’), deemed to be the ultimate source of knowledge. With the rise of experimental science in the Early Modern era, the static authority of language began to erode. New methods and technologies replaced classical texts as primary tools to explore the created world. Isidore’s contributions as an etymologist were likewise supplanted by the new discipline of philology. Still traces of Isidore’s work underlie even the most contemporary encyclopaedias and information highways. In 1997, Pope John Paul II named Isidore patron saint of the internet. 

T-O map: and alternate design of the first printed map

Illuminated letter

Illuminated letters

Circular diagrams 

Wind diagram

Tree diagram made with words

Illuminated letter 

’s enormously influential 'Etymologies' with hand-coloured diagrams and illuminated acanthus initials with gold. One of the earliest printings of a world map, on a T-O projection, and medieval diagrams of the winds, and climate zones.

Contemporary calf over wooden boards, elaborately ruled and tooled in blind, with brass catches, engraved clasps and central bosses, supra libros of old inscription of letters of the alphabet and diphthongs around blindstamped border 

Royal folio. 125 leaves (of 126, without initial blank). Illuminated with 27 acanthus initials in gold, red, green, and blue with scrolling tendrils extending into the margins; numerous red and blue Lombard initials, and 7 hand-coloured woodcut illustrations including the T-O map, and a full-page type-set tree of consanguinity.

An Alternative T-O Map from Isidore of Seville's 'Etymologies'