ABSTRACT
At the turn of the seventeenth century two early modern maps of the world, one from the East and one from the West, present a startling visual conundrum. Where radical difference might naturally be assumed, at a glance these two maps show an unusually high level of correspondence. Both Abraham Ortelius’ well-known engraving from his Theatrum orbis terrarum (Antwerp, 1570) and an anonymous Japanese artist’s World Map screen, now in the Kobe City Museum, possess the same horizontal projection with the same five continents of Europe, Asia, Africa, America and the ‘Unknown Southern Land’, similarities immediately apparent when the Japanese World Map is viewed horizontally (Figures 7.1 and 7.2).1
