Short answers, pulled from the story.
The Tabula Peutineriana is a parchment copy of an ancient Roman road map dating from around 1200. It preserves the layout of the cursus publicus, which served as the official transport system under Emperor Augustus.
Conrad Celtes discovered the parchment in a library in Worms on the 14th of September 1494. He bequeathed the document to Konrad Peutinger before his death, though scholars dispute whether a monk in Colmar created the surviving copy in 1265.
The scroll resides at the Austrian National Library within the Hofburg palace in Vienna after being acquired by the Habsburg Imperial Court Library upon Prince Eugene of Savoy's death in 1737. Access remains restricted due to its fragile condition, with only one day of public display occurring on the 26th of November 2007.
No fewer than 555 cities and 3,500 other place names appear on the parchment, including Rome, Constantinople, and Antioch which receive special iconic decoration. Pompeii does not appear because it was destroyed by Mount Vesuvius in AD 79 and never rebuilt, proving the map preserves an ancient prototype rather than a later creation.
The scroll measures 6.75 metres long and 0.35 metres high, consisting of eleven sections assembled into a single medieval reproduction. Its rectangular layout reflects the shape of the parchment pages while prioritizing practical road networks over geographic accuracy.