Ex Carta

Only a handful of sets of the original Bibliothek der Scherze survive (e.g. Tel Aviv University, Szeged University, and one Private collection in the US), and just eight complete examples of the separate atlas are known worldwide.

The atlas begins with a general map of the ‘Moral World’, followed by nine maps of its principal regions. Human virtues, vices and desires are represented as geographical features, including cities, seas, rivers, mountains, roads and fortifications. The reader travels from the City of Self-Love through the Kingdoms of Love, Acquisition, Honour, Power, Knowledge, Idleness and Speculation, towards the Land of Tranquillity.

The City of Self-Love is divided between a virtuous district containing Patience, Humility and Harmony, and a corrupt district associated with Boasting, Indiscretion and Self-Satisfaction. Elsewhere, seas of Joy, Despair and Bottomlessness surround the moral landscape. Reilly presents life itself as a journey through these territories, with the Land of Tranquillity as its ideal destination.

Von Reilly’s Atlas of the Moral World reimagines geography as a landscape of virtues and vices. Its witty, allegorical maps translate moral philosophy into spatial form, turning ethical reflection into an entertaining journey across an imagined moral landscape.

Franz Johann Joseph von Reilly (1766–1820) was a prolific Austrian cartographer, editor and writer who published around 800 maps and numerous atlases, including the monumental 

] (1789–1806), as well as postal, diplomatic and school atlases. (Holzer, 2020)

 stands apart from Reilly’s more conventional cartographic publications. Its ten allegorical maps first appeared in 1801, distributed across the six volumes of his 

Bibliothek der Scherze mit einem satyrisch-allegorischen Atlasse

Library of Jokes with a Satirical-Allegorical Atlas

In 1802 the maps and their explanatory texts were gathered into this separate volume, with a new engraved title page showing Heracles at the Crossroads, choosing between Virtue and Vice.

 is an early example of cartographic conventions being used to represent allegorical and conceptual spaces rather than empirical geography. The tension between the apparent precision of the maps and the imaginary nature of the places they depict becomes a source of both humour and moral reflection. In exploiting this tension for the amusement of his audience, von Reilly’s work anticipates the whimsy of Bernard Sleigh’s 

General Map of the Moral World

Frontispiece for Atlas of the Moral World

Map of the City of Self-Love