A long pennant carries the enigmatic device: On the left, partially obscured, one appears to be beached on the right a small craft is scudding along with a crew member indistinctly shown, and in the foreground a ship is at anchor, its hawser tense against a very strong tidal current. Its course divides the principal city of Amaurotum, ( Civitae Amaurotum) which occupies the top centre, though the bridge crossing the river to link the two sections of the city is not drawn, a shame in view of the description in the text which, in the first English translation by Robynson in 1551, describes a structure: '.not of pyles or of tymber, but of stonewarke, with gorgious and substanciall archeis.' The large harbour of the island is protected, as described, by a 'great rocke' which has on it a 'faire and strong towre builded'. The island's river, the Anydri, or waterless, has its source in a small waterfall (labelled fons) to the left of the map, and its mouth ( ostium) opening into the landlocked harbour to the right. These city states are reduced to six in the map.
UTOPIA BY THOMAS MORE PLUS
Ackroyd 4 points out that the island as described in the book has the same dimensions as England, with the number of city states corresponding to the number of counties, plus London, which latter city the main town of the island resembles. The map of the 1516 edition is crudely cut, and corresponds only schematically with the text, in scale bearing no relationship to it at all. Where a question arises is in comparing the naivety of this first 'map' with the sophistication of the later map. There is no difficulty over the commission being possible, since in 1514/5 Ambrosius and Hans were co-operating on marginal illustrations for a Froben edition of Erasmus' own book In praise of folly, which was published in Basel in 1515, and Erasmus, as has been said, was midwifeing the first edition of Utopia. This first edition was illustrated with a sketch map of Utopia attributed to the 22-year-old Ambrosius, and entitled UTOPIAE INSULAE FIGURA ( Fig. More had only completed the manuscript in September, and the publication was overseen by Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam, and More's new friend Peter Gilles, (or Aegidius), Town Clerk of Antwerp. In December 1516 Thomas More's Utopia was first published in its original Latin text by Thierry Martens of Louvain. The publication of the maps, and Erasmus' input These date from 1516 (C27 b30), 1517 (C65 e1, reputedly Henry VIII's own copy), and 1518 (G.2398), and are in very good condition. It is possible to enjoy the privilege of examining examples of the first three editions of More's Utopia in the British Library, Euston Road. The first three editions of More's Utopia
UTOPIA BY THOMAS MORE FULL
It well deserves this exposure, even if its full significance was not recognised, for it is a work the equal of Hans' anamorphic skull. To illustrate how the effect was achieved, both photographic and computer regenerated skull images of Hans' anamorphic skull are shown, and there is discussion of its meaning as a memento mori, a reminder of mortality.Īmbrosius' own teasing memento mori was given wide exposure in 1998, when Peter Ackroyd published his Life of Thomas More 3 and used the 1518 map of Utopia for his full page illustration on the back of the dust cover. This work, the fifth in the Making and meaning series, ' place(d) the newly restored picture in its technical, scientific, and historical context', and considerable attention was paid to the skull in the foreground, the oblique slash of which is such a challenging enigma in the composition.
The exhibition was accompanied by an explanatory publication 2 sponsored, as was the exhibition, by Esso UK plc. In 1997/8, a special exhibition in the National Gallery in London celebrated the completion of the cleaning and restoration of the painting of Jean de Dinteville and Georges de Selve, which is called The ambassadors (NG 1314).
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