Pilgrimage, tapestries, and cartography: sixteenth-century wall hangings commemorating a pilgrimage to the Holy Land

The paper considers two large sixteenth-century tapestries, originating in a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. It is argued that although they are not paper maps, and were never printed or included in any atlas or map collection, these tapestries ought to be categorized as realistic pilgrimage maps, based on first-hand observation and guided by the unique late medieval Christian geo-religious perception of the Holy Land and the Holy City. Furthermore, the resemblance of the tapestries to printed maps, such as the map included in the book of Bernhard of Breydenbach, and other well-known contemporary paintings of Jerusalem and the Holy Land, such as the one commemorating the pilgrimage of Friedrich the Wise, may hint at the source material used by their creators, who lived in a similar social–cultural milieu.