Cartography - Why the focus on Renaissance?

[Hussar]

I'm an enormous fantasy map dork. I LOVE maps. And, yes, I spend far too much time perusing image searches for fantasy maps.

But, one thing that really sticks out in my mind is when people draw urban maps, nearly all of them are Renaissance era architecture. To give an example, here is a very, very cool isometric map:

Super cool map. Love it. But, like nearly all maps, it's stuck in the late 15th century. Why doesn't any do earlier era maps? I would love to see some urban maps based on 10th or 12th century architecture. Or even earlier - Roman empire era maps would be fantastic.

If anyone knows a good place to find these sorts of things, don't be shy, let a feller know.

 

[Tonguez]

Probably because 12th century maps tend to be quite sparse both due to map drawing being primitive and most ‘large’ settlements consisting of a castle on the hill, a church, maybe two or 3 roads and then a whole lot of huts and fields.

Its not until the Renaissance that the beautiful detailed maps we know were actually invented

 

[Tonguez]

Here is a Map of Roman Londinium around AD 200, from Britannica Online

 

[Hussar]

I don't mean real world maps. I get that. My question is, why are fantasy maps locked into Renaissance? Particularly urban maps. Like the example I gave above - fantastic map. Lots of information, looks like there's lots to see and do on the map. Cool idea. But, why are nearly all the maps like this locked into a very specific time period? It's not like D&D is technologically that advanced (for the most part).

I mean, look at the ships on the map I posted. Those ships are a couple of centuries more advanced than what you'd find in most D&D campaigns. Those ships wouldn't look all that out of place sailing into Boston Harbor. It would just be nice if we could get some earlier setting maps.

Granted, my artistic ability is limited to stick figures, so, any of these maps are far, far beyond what I can do.

 

[Li Shenron]

Isn't it simply because RPGs fantasy settings tend to be a lot slanted towards the very late middle ages? Most of them tend to feature bustling societies where business and knowledge abounds, which imply fairly modern highly-populated towns, so probably they end up representing them also with appropriate architecture.

 

[Hussar]

You don't need Renaissance for highly populated towns. Rome had a million people. Paris around 1200 had 110 000 people. D&D sets major cities at 25000, so, it wouldn't need to be much more advanced than, say, 1200 CE.

But, yeah, I'm going to blame Tolkien. It's always his fault.

 

[MGibster]

Fantasy RPGs are typically a hodgepodge of cultures and eras spanning the ancient world right on up to early modern Europe. I suspect one of the reasons why such maps are popular is because they're useful as gaming aids. Hell, they often have keys and are in nice little hexes so we know exactly how far it is from point A to point B.

 

[Ravenbrook]

I have no problems with late medieval fantasy cities. In eastern Europe, Germany, and England, the 15th century was basically still late medieval. Also, the plate armor in D&D is generally 15th century or even later. That said, I, too, would like to see more fantasy cities based on ancient counterparts.

 

[Leatherhead]

But, yeah, I'm going to blame Tolkien. It's always his fault.

You aren't wrong.
The Middle Ages, Renaissance, and Age of Sail are often conglomerated into a anachronistic stew to represent "The time after Ancient History but before the Industrial Age" that D&D seems to take place in.

Out of those options, the Pre-industrial Renascence is the "Iconic" cityscape.
When you think of older architecture, you think of a Church or sanctuary, a hamlet or village, possibly a Castle or town, but not a city.

Those ships wouldn't look all that out of place sailing into Boston Harbor.

To be fair, that ship was made over 200 years ago.

 

[Tonguez]

Roman Viroconium AD 130 (modern Wroxeter, Shropshire) was the fourth largest city in England before going into decline. Relevantly it was reoccupied and restored by the Gododdin tribe in AD 480 and is a proposed candidate for the 'real' Camelot. because it was ruled by the son of Yrthyr pen-Dragon

Out of those options, the Pre-industrial Renascence is the "Iconic" cityscape.
When you think of older architecture, you think of a Church or sanctuary, a hamlet or village, possibly a Castle or town, but not a city.

I think you're right that the renaissance city is the iconic 'old' cityscape and that gets back to my earlier point that it was during the renaissance that the art of map making developed, alongside art showing cities as landscapes.

Those real world examples then become ingrained as the inspiration for later illustrators tasked with creating fantasy maps., its harder to illustrate older cityscapes because there is simply less reference material around, older maps aren;t very detailed (and 10th Century cities have less archaeological excavation than Roman ruins)