cypruscartography:
The map of Cyprus in Johannes Janssen’s Atlas Novus sive Theatrum Orbis Terrarum (1649) is a more cheerful story. The cartouche is made up of an image of Aphrodite drawn in a shell chariot by swans (right). In Greek mythology Aphrodite was born in Cyprus, and emerged from the sea in a shell. She is seen here with Eros who has plunged an arrow of love into her breast. The legend gave the artist an excuse to depict a nude in a map, to the delight of the buyer (most likely a man). Aphrodite is quite robust, a mixture of figures by Michelangelo and Rubens, whose work the Dutch mapmaker would have known and may well have been influenced by it.
