Collection: Vintage world maps

From Europe to America via the African continent, cross continents, seas and oceans, like an ancient explorer, thanks to an interior decoration that will take your family and friends on a journey through time.

Cards that tell you a story!

From the earliest documents like papyri and parchment to today's Google Maps, cartography has always been a passion. From the astronomer Hipparchus who was the first to carry out cartographic projections through Guillaume Délisle who is also one of the precursors in geography, the history of world maps was long and fascinating, so in this collection, I try to tell you this story.

🗺️ The world map, an ancient vision of the world

The word world map comes from the Latin mappa (tablecloth, map) and mundi (world), used since the Middle Ages to designate ancient representations of the Earth. Unlike the globe, the world map offers a flat representation of the Earth's surface, often divided into two hemispheres to better illustrate the entirety of the known world.

From the 13th century onward, mappae mundi appeared in medieval manuscripts. These early maps combined geography, myths, religious symbols, and limited scientific knowledge. But it was during the Renaissance, with the rise of great explorations, that world maps took on a more rigorous and aesthetic turn.

Major figures in cartography such as Petrus Plancius (1552–1622), Arnoldus Montanus (1625–1683), and Rumold Mercator (son of Gerard Mercator) produced extremely detailed and beautifully illustrated maps.

The most famous remains Gerard Mercator (1512–1594), who introduced, in 1569, the Mercator projection : an innovative world map, essential for navigators, because it allowed them to plot straight routes across the oceans.

Thus, the world map is not just a map: it is a historical document, a scientific tool and an artistic work that reminds us how civilizations have represented and dreamed of the world.