The Mappa mundi of Albi: Insight into the manufacturing, life and conservation state of an 8th century world map

The Mappa mundi of Albi is one of the oldest examples of spatial representation of the Western world. The small map conserved on the verso of folio 57 in manuscript 29 of the Médiathèque Pierre Amalric in Albi (France) was drawn on parchment, probably made in the second half of the 8th century, somewhere between south-western France and northern Spain, maybe in Albi itself. Because of its exceptional importance for the history of space representation, the map, together with the Index of seas and winds facing it, on the recto of folio 58, was recorded in the UNESCO Memory of the World Register in 2015. The detailed study published here has examined the manuscript’s structure and characterised the different constitutive materials. Observations and physicochemical analyses were performed on the map and the index, from the micro to the macroscale, combining optical microscopy, XRF, FORS, FTIR, and micro-Raman spectroscopy, hyperspectral imaging, proteomic analysis, and non-linear optical microscopy. Three manuscripts conserved at the same library or suspected to have been produced in the scriptorium of Albi have also been examined for comparisons. This material investigation complements the historical studies of the map by shedding new light on the manufacturing, life, and conservation state of this exceptional document.