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The Tabula Rogeriana, or
Book of Roger, was completed
by Moroccan cartographer
Muhammad al-Idrisi in 1154.
Compiled over 15 years for
King Roger II of Sicily—who
hoped the map could inform
and expand his rule—the book
included a world map with 70
regional maps, each accompa-nied by a detailed description
of their cities, roads, rivers, and
mountains. For the next three
centuries, it was among the most
accurate geographic works in
existence of the known world.
It later helped guide Vasco da
Gama’s voyage to India by sea.
Though it was produced for a
Norman king in Italy, the atlas
was a culminating achievement
from the Islamic Golden Age—
while science took a sabbatical
in most of Europe during the
early middle ages.
Al-Idrisi’s work was in large
part based on Geographia, which
was rediscovered and translatedinto Arabic around the 9th cen-
tury. Islamic cartographers built
on Ptolemy’s work and corrected
errors based on their knowl-
edge of the growing empire.
They accurately drew the Indian
Ocean as open and connected to
the Pacific Ocean, instead of Pto-
lemy’s landlocked sea.
Islamic mapmakers also pro-
duced some of the most elaborate
charts of the era, largely inspired
by the need to determine the
direction of Mecca from any-
where in the world. Islamic world
maps were oriented with south at
the top, looking “up” toward the
holy city.TABULA
ROGERIANA
AN UPDATE
FOR THE
NEXT
MILLENNIUM