Cyprus Chartographia

The map of Cyprus in Johannes Janssen’s Atlas Novus sive Theatrum Orbis Terrarum (1649) is a more cheerful story. The cartouche is made up of an image of Aphrodite drawn in a shell chariot by swans (right). In Greek mythology Aphrodite was born in Cyprus, and emerged from the sea in a shell. She is seen here with Eros who has plunged an arrow of love into her breast. The legend gave the artist an excuse to depict a nude in a map, to the delight of the buyer (most likely a man). Aphrodite is quite robust, a mixture of figures by Michelangelo and Rubens, whose work the Dutch mapmaker would have known and may well have been influenced by it.

The map of Cyprus in Johannes Janssen’s Atlas Novus sive Theatrum Orbis Terrarum (1649) is a more cheerful story. The cartouche is made up of an image of Aphrodite drawn in a shell chariot by swans (right). In Greek mythology Aphrodite was born in Cyprus, and emerged from the sea in a shell. She is seen here with Eros who has plunged an arrow of love into her breast. The legend gave the artist an excuse to depict a nude in a map, to the delight of the buyer (most likely a man). Aphrodite is quite robust, a mixture of figures by Michelangelo and Rubens, whose work the Dutch mapmaker would have known and may well have been influenced by it.

(Source: queens.ox.ac.uk)