The Fool's Cap Map is a late sixteenth-century engraving that places a globe, flattened into an oval projection, onto the face of a court jester. The projection comes from the geographer Abraham Ortelius, whose 1570 atlas Theater of the World was the first modern global atlas. The map is covered with quotations about folly and vanity, including lines from Ecclesiastes and Psalm 39. The jester's cap and bells suggest that the world's pursuit of knowledge, and the people who sell maps of it, may be foolish. The meaning is still debated, because the image can be read as mocking both the world and cartography itself.

Hampi is a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Karnataka, India, with more than 1,600 surviving remains spread over 4,100 hectares. It was the capital of the Vijayanagara Empire from 1336 to 1565. Travellers from Persia and Portugal described it as a prosperous, wealthy and grand city with temples, markets and farms along the Tungabhadra River. By 1500 it was estimated to be the world's second-largest city after Beijing, and probably India's richest at the time. In 1565 a coalition of Muslim sultanates defeated the Vijayanagara Empire, its capital was conquered and destroyed, and the city was left in ruins. Hampi remains a religious centre, with the active Virupaksha Temple at its heart.