The precise definition of a bird’s-eye view has been a subject of considerable debate in the history of cartography. There is general consensus that the term connotes being ‘above’ in some manner, but bird’s-eye view is often used to refer to perspectives that are at various possible angles. While bird’s-eye view can sometimes be used to mean directly above, that perspective is more likely to be called a town plan by Mapping History. Historians of cartography mostly agree that a bird’s eye view is oblique in some way, but the precise angle is a crucial factor. According to Lynam, the English bird’s-eye view used around a seventy-degree perspective.[1] Meanwhile, Lucia Nuti’s work European maps, in particular Italian maps, suggested a perspective of between thirty and sixty degrees.[2] Frangenberg used the term “oblique” to refer to views of roughly the same kind. He defines the oblique view as one that shows “both the ground-plan and the buildings,” but in such a way that “the street layout” becomes “entirely, or largely occluded.”[3] Ballon and Friedman argue that the “bird’s-eye view” was “one of the greatest achievements of Renaissance visual culture,” but do not define the term[4] . The difference between a view at approximately thirty degrees and a view at approximately seventy degrees, both of which have been referred to as bird’s-eye views, is significant.
The interest surrounding the bird’s-eye view comes from its characteristic representational capabilities in addition to its ambiguous definition. A bird’s-eye view often allows a view of the city itself as well as the surrounding area and provides some sense of what individual structures looked like to observers on the ground. In the early modern period, a bird’s-eye view was virtually impossible to observe in real life, which made maps with this view even more intriguing to contemporary viewers.[5] Examples of chorographies which can be described using the term “bird’s-eye view” as well as several quotes that describe the view are provided below.
[IMAGE: BRAUN AND HOGENBERG MARBURG]
Georg Braun and Frans Hogenberg,Marburg, 1572
[IMAGE: ANNA BEECK NICE]
Anna Beeck, Nice, 1709
[IMAGE: CLEMENS PAELIO CEUTA}
Clemens Paelio, Ceuta, 1698
[IMAGE: BRAUN AND HOGENBERG MEXICO CITY]
George Braun and Frans Hogenberg, Mexico City, 1572
Example Quotes
When the viewer is supposed to stand almost at the zenith of the town, for example, he is permitted a very distinct view of the layout of the streets and the line of the roofs, but he cannot see the facades and the distinctive features of the main buildings.”[6]
“The bird’s-eye view was not something that one could have experienced, even by chance, in the sixteenth century, but could only dream of: an ancient dream, dating from Greek culture”[7]
“Barbari’s ‘Venetie’ applied techniques of perspective drawing to the northern woodcut tradition, producing a bird’s-eye view of the town that could display simultaneously both the layout of streets and profiles of buildings.”[8]
“An oblique angle high above the city.”[9]
[1] Lynam, Edward. “English Maps and Map-Makers of the Sixteenth Century,” The Geographic Journal, Vol. 116, No. 1/3 (Jul. - Sep., 1950): 7
[2] Nuti, Lucia. “The Perspective Plan in the Sixteenth Century: The Invention of Representational Language,” The Art Bulletin, Vol. 76, No. 1 (1994): 121
[3] Frangenberg, Thomas. “Chorographies of Florence: The Use of City Views and City Plans in the Sixteenth Century,” Imago Mundi, Vol 46, No. I. (1993): 41
[4] Ballon, Hillary, and David Friedman. “Portraying the City in Early Modern Europe: Measurement, Representation, and Planning.” In The History of Cartography, Volume 3, Cartography in the European Renaissance, edited by David Woodward, 680–704. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007: 687 [JS4]
[5] Nuti, 126.
[6] Nuti, 121.
[7] Nuti, 126.
[8] Mukerji, Chandra, “Printing, Cartography, and Conceptions of Place in Renaissance Europe,” Media, Culture & Society, 28, no. 5, (2006): 655.
[9] Maier, Jessica. “A ‘True Likeness’: The Renaissance City Portrait,” Renaissance Quarterly, vol 65, no. 3 (2012): 755.