Diagramming the Direction of History: Succession of Empires from the Trojan Past to the Angevin Future
Diagramming the Direction of History: Succession of Empires from the Trojan Past to the Angevin Future

Summary/Abstract: Can the vastness of world history be encoded in a single image? A tantalizing, highly original, 14th-century diagram of succession of world empires sought to accomplish that. Its center is not Jerusalem, but the Mediterranean sea. Four labeled cities enclose it and complete its history: Troy, Rome, Constantinople, and a mysterious Agalatea. Though its universalizing spirit is that of mappaemundi, its purpose is very different from medieval Christian images. The ground-breaking image offers a progression of history in exclusively imperial terms. This study argues that the diagram encodes a distinctly opportunist, Angevin view of history.

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