Description
The Peloponnese: Morea on a Seventeenth-Century Map
The title Morea olim Peloponessus places two names for the same remarkable region side by side. Peloponnesus was the classical name, traditionally understood as the “island of Pelops”, while Morea was widely used during the medieval and early modern periods. The Latin word olim means “formerly”, so the title can be read broadly as “Morea, formerly Peloponnesus.” Its wording connects the geography known to Blaeu’s seventeenth-century readers with the landscape described by ancient historians.
A Peninsula Shaped by Geography
The Peloponnese forms the great hand-shaped peninsula of southern Greece. It is joined to the mainland by the narrow Isthmus of Corinth and surrounded by the Ionian and Aegean seas. The Corinth Canal, which now cuts through the isthmus, was not completed until the nineteenth century and therefore does not appear here.
Blaeu’s map emphasises a rugged country of mountain chains, valleys, rivers and deeply divided coastlines. Settlements are marked throughout the interior and around the shore, while the islands and sea passages place the peninsula within the wider eastern Mediterranean. Pictorial hills were not intended to provide the measured heights of a modern map; they offered the seventeenth-century reader a vivid impression of difficult terrain.
A Landscape of Classical History
Few parts of Greece contain a greater concentration of places associated with the ancient world. Mycenae and Tiryns belonged to the Bronze Age civilisation remembered in later Greek legend. Olympia was home to the ancient Olympic Games, while Sparta became celebrated for its military society. Corinth controlled an exceptionally valuable position between mainland Greece and the peninsula, with access towards both the Aegean and Ionian seas.
The Peloponnese also stood at the centre of the long conflict between Athens and Sparta known as the Peloponnesian War. Yet the region was never defined by Sparta alone. Arcadia, Achaea, Elis, Messenia, Laconia and Argolis each possessed distinctive landscapes, cities and political histories. Many of these old regional names remained important to historians and mapmakers centuries later.
From Byzantium to the Ottoman Morea
Following the classical and Roman periods, the peninsula became part of the Byzantine world. During the Middle Ages it was contested by Byzantine rulers, Frankish crusader states, local powers and Venice. Mystras, near ancient Sparta, developed into an important late Byzantine centre and capital of the Despotate of the Morea.
Most of the peninsula came under Ottoman control during the fifteenth century, although Venetian influence remained strong around several ports and islands. When this map was published in 1640, the Peloponnese was therefore known to western European readers both through classical literature and as a strategically important part of the Ottoman eastern Mediterranean.
The Blaeu Mapmaking House
The map carries the imprint of Willem Janszoon Blaeu, one of the leading figures of the Dutch Golden Age of cartography. Willem established an Amsterdam workshop renowned for the quality of its maps, sea charts, globes and atlases. After his death in 1638, the business was continued by his sons Joan and Cornelis.
This edition appeared in 1640 within the Blaeu atlas tradition. Its geographical ancestry can be traced to earlier representations by Gerard Mercator, whose work influenced generations of Dutch atlas publishers. Rather than being a modern archaeological reconstruction, the map records how the Peloponnese was understood and presented to educated European readers more than three and a half centuries ago.
A Map to Explore
The fascination of this old map lies in comparing familiar places with their historic names and seventeenth-century forms. Coastlines, settlements, rivers and mountains reward close examination, while the decorative cartouche and finely engraved lettering give the sheet a strong visual character. It is at once a map of southern Greece, a record of European geographical knowledge and an attractive reminder of a landscape layered with classical, Byzantine, Venetian and Ottoman history.