John Speed’s A New Mappe of the Romane Empire is a 17th-century English map of the ancient Roman Empire. The map is dated 1626. and later appeared in Speed’s world atlas, A Prospect of the Most Famous Parts of the World, first published in 1627.
At first, it looks like a map of Rome’s ancient power. But it is also something more specific: a 17th-century English view of the Roman world. Speed used ancient place names, historical notes, city views, costume figures, and symbolic portraits to make Roman history readable for people of his own time.
A Roman map made in 17th-century England
This map does not show the Roman Empire through Roman eyes. It shows how John Speed and his publishers organized the ancient world for early modern readers.
The center of the map focuses on Europe and the lands around the Mediterranean, the regions most strongly connected with Roman power at the height of the empire. The map also reaches into North Africa, the Middle East, Anatolia, Arabia, the British Isles, and lands north of the classical Mediterranean world.
That wide view is important. Rome was not only a city or an Italian power. It became a Mediterranean empire, and Speed’s map tries to show that larger world in one printed sheet.
Ancient names on a newer map
One of the most interesting parts of the map is the way it mixes time periods.
Speed used the geographic knowledge available in his own period, then added names connected with the Roman world. The Black Sea appears as the Euxine Sea, and the Mediterranean appears as the Middle Land Sea.
That tells you how to read the map. It is not a modern reconstruction of Roman borders. It is a historical map made in 1626, using 17th-century mapmaking to explain an ancient empire.
Why the border matters
The border is not just decoration. It tells you how Speed wanted the map to be read.
This is a carte à figures map, a style where the central map is surrounded by figures, city views, or scenes. MapForum describes Speed’s world atlas maps as part of this genre, with costume figures in side panels and town plans or views in the borders.
On this map, the border turns the Roman Empire into a small visual lesson. The center shows geography. The edges show cities, people, symbols, and stories connected with the Roman world as Speed’s readers understood it.
John Speed
John Speed was an English historian and mapmaker who lived from about 1552. to 1629. He worked as a merchant tailor before becoming known for historical and cartographic work. Sir Fulke Greville’s patronage helped him pursue research more seriously.
If you want to read more about John Speed click here.
The cities across the top
Across the top border, Speed included 6 city views: Rome, Genua, Jerusalem, Venice, Constantinople, and Alexandria.
These are not random choices. Rome is the center of the story. Constantinople continued Roman imperial identity in the east. Jerusalem was one of the most important cities on the map. It carried deep religious and historical meaning, especially for Christian readers, but also stood as a sacred city in Jewish, Christian, and Islamic tradition. Alexandria was one of the great cities of the ancient Mediterranean. Genua and Venice connected the map to later Mediterranean trade and early modern European knowledge.
Venice is especially revealing. It was not a major city of the Roman Empire at its height. Crouch Rare Books notes that Venice appears even though it was not founded until after Rome’s heyday. That tells us Speed was not trying to create a pure ancient reconstruction. He was presenting Rome’s world through places that still mattered to his own readers.
The people shown on the sides
The side borders show pairs of men and women in regional dress. Old World Auctions identifies them as figures from Spain, Italy, Turkey, Egypt, and Morocco.
These figures are important because they make the time-mixing even clearer. The map is about the ancient Roman Empire, but the people in the side panels wear clothing from Speed’s own period. They are not shown as ancient Romans.
That does not make the map wrong. It shows how 17th-century readers connected ancient geography with the living regions they knew, traded with, read about, or imagined.
Rome, Romulus, and the story of origin
The top corners include 2 medallions. Old World Auctions identifies them as portraits of Rome and Romulus. Crouch Rare Books describes them more precisely as Roma, the personification of Rome, and Romulus, the legendary founder of the city.
Roma represents Rome as a symbolic figure, while Romulus refers to the legendary founder of the city. Their placement in the top corners helps connect the map to Rome’s origin story and its later image as an empire.
The history written into the map
A large text box appears in Africa. RareMaps describes it as an overview of the “Beginning Increase & Height” of the Roman Empire. Crouch Rare Books also describes the lower cartouche as a brief history of the foundation and expansion of Roman power.
This is one of the clearest signs that the map was meant to be studied. The text box helps explain the map’s main subject. It gives the reader a short account of Rome’s foundation, growth, and height, while the map shows the lands connected to Roman power.
Small details that bring the map to life
Speed’s map also includes details that make it visually rich. At sea, there is a naval battle, a ship, and 2 sea monsters. In Africa, there are lions, a camel train, a cheetah, and ostriches.
These details are not the main subject, but they show how 17th-century maps often combined geography, history, decoration, and imagination. A map could teach, organize, entertain, and impress the reader at the same time.
Why Is this Map Important
John Speed’s map matters because it shows ancient Rome through the visual language of 17th-century England.
It uses Roman names and history, but it also includes early modern city views, regional costume figures, decorative animals, ships, sea monsters, and symbolic portraits. That mixture is the point. The map does not separate the ancient world from Speed’s own time as cleanly as we might today.
Instead, it shows how early modern readers looked back at Rome: as history, geography, legend, empire, and living cultural memory all at once.
Final note
A New Mappe of the Romane Empire is not valuable because it gives us a perfect modern map of Roman borders. It is valuable because it shows how Rome was understood, organized, and illustrated in 1626.
The map turns Roman history into a full printed image: geography in the center, cities above, people at the sides, origin stories in the corners, and historical explanation written into the map itself.
