 versions of ‘Somnium Scipionis’ are known from as early as the eleventh century, but the work was not printed until 1472 (Nicolaus Jenson, Venice), and then without the map, which was not printed until the edition of 1483 (Bonino de Bonini, Brescia).

Ambrosius Macrobius’s world map presents the Earth through classical climatic theory as found in medieval sources (see SC-B-1472-Isidore-Etymologies-1Ed-TOMap). The world is shown as flat and perfectly balanced between two uninhabitable polar zones (‘Frigida’) at the top and bottom. Between these are two inhabitable land masses: a very recognizable depiction of Europe, Africa, and Asia in the north, and a large ‘Temperata Antipodum nobis incognita’ in the south, separated by the extremely hot ‘Perusta’ zone. In the middle is the ‘Alveus Oceani’, the vast ocean river that circles the globe. Macrobius’s climatic theory differs slightly from classical models offered by authors like Cicero and 

. Whereas Cicero thought the southern zone was habitable and Isidore noted that ‘the Antipodes are fabulously said to dwell’, Macrobius considered that the heat of the torrid zone made passage to the Antipodes impossible. 

In his ‘Somnium Scipionis’ (‘The Dream of Scipio’), appended to the end of his ‘De Re Publica’, the classical Roman scholar, Marcus Tullius Cicero (106–43 BCE) recounted a dream in which Scipio Aemilianus was visited by the spirit of his grandfather, Scipio Africanus, the conqueror of Carthage. In Cicero’s dream, the older Scipio takes the younger up to the heavens and grants him a new perspective of the earth.

In his own commentary on 'The Dream of Scipio’, Macrobius (fl. 400) expands on Cicero’s work from Neoplatonic perspectives. His commentary is not exhaustive, focusing specifically on theories of dreams, the mystic properties of numbers, the nature of the soul, and the relationship between astronomy and music. He quotes a number of authorities, but Plotinus and Porphyry are his main sources with a sprinkling of Virgil for ornamentation. While hardly an exhaustive resource, Ambrosius Macrobius’s commentary preserves significant Neoplatonic ideas from the Late Antique era, particularly dream theory, that are not known elsewhere. 

An imaginative world map that illustrates Macrobius's commentary on 'The Dream of Scipio' by the Roman scholar Cicero. It is a hybrid map, fusing medieval 'T-O' traditions, classical climatic theory, and contemporary Ptolemaic projections. The world is shown as round and surrounded by oceans; the known landmasses in the northern hemisphere are balanced by a symmetrical ‘terra incognita’ (unknown land) in the south. Tiny windheads surround the earth, and there are floral decorations in the corner of the map.

Macrobius’s book influenced European thought for many generations, in particular his speculations on the insignificant size of the earth in relation to the cosmos and the ephemerality of life. These perspectives were especially significant to European explorers like Columbus of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. 

Hybrid T-O map

Textual page with small geometric diagram 

Zodiac diagram

Circular diagram

Textual page 

A very fine example of Ambrosius Macrobius’s commentary on ‘Scipio’s Dream’, including a hybrid world map which combines medieval climatic theory with Ptolemaic projections.

Contemporary blind-decorated calf-backed oak boards, remains of clasps and catches.

2 parts in one volume. Small folio. 122 leaves, Roman type with some Greek text, headline and 45 lines, woodcut map, woodcut diagrams, one intaglio woodcut initial, 3- 9-line initial spaces. 