A little known atlas by Vesconte Maggiolo, 1518

ABSTRACT

The rediscovery of the Selden Map of China (MS Selden Supra 105) in the Bodleian Library in 2008 provides an opportunity to reassess the history of Chinese cartography and debates about maritime dimensions of the Ming Empire. The map depicts a network of Chinese shipping routes, reaching from Japan to Aceh, Sumatra, and suggests previously unknown map-making techniques. In this article I draw attention to the map's unique components, notably its portrayal of shipping routes and vegetation, consider its sources, and suggest a possible patron and location of composition.     

Hidden footnotes: J.A. Smith,R.G. Collingwood and Croce’s conception of history

This article examines the role J.A. Smith played in introducing Croce’s conception of history into British philosophy. In particular, it examines his influence on R.G. Collingwood’s incorporation of the Italian idealist conception of history into his own philosophy. The contentions that Smith was a key popularizer of Italian idealist ideas into Britain and that he helped to shape Collingwood’s intellectual developed is not new. Yet these interrelated topics have not been explored in any great depth. Collingwood’s own reticence over his intellectual debt to Smith, a lack of interest in Smith and an unfamiliarity with his philosophy have all contributed to this neglect. This article seeks to redress this neglect through analysing how Smith nurtured Collingwood’s adoption of a Crocean conception of history. To achieve its aim, this article first analyses Smith’s own reception of Croce’s conception of history. From this, it presents a contextualist analysis of Collingwood’s development of a Crocean conception of history and the role Smith played in its adoption. Finally, this article examines why, despite Smith’s influence over his intellectual development, Collingwood failed to acknowledge the intellectual debt he owed to Smith.     

On Trial—Social Relations of Map Production in Mid-Nineteenth-Century Britain

ABSTRACT

This article examines the social relations of map production in mid-nineteenth-century Britain with reference to moments when maps and their makers were ‘on trial’—legally in court in Edinburgh in 1853 and by public opinion in London in 1854 following a lecture. The principal protagonists include Alexander Keith Johnston of the map firm W. & A. K. Johnston, the German cartographer August Petermann, the mapseller Trelawney Saunders and John Bartholomew junior of the Bartholomew map firm. The article draws upon Thomas Gieryn’s idea of the ‘truth spot’ and on Matthew Edney’s call for studies in processual map history.     

A Life in Maps: Leo Bagrow,Imago Mundi,and the History of Cartography in the Early Twentieth Century

ABSTRACT:

This essay provides a critical commentary on the life of Leo Bagrow (1881–1957), the founding editor of Imago Mundi, drawing on previously unused correspondence from the journal’s archive, recently catalogued by the British Library in London. Bagrow’s experiences in the three European cities in which he lived and worked (St Petersburg, Berlin and Stockholm) are examined afresh and new insights are provided about the complex intellectual and sometimes political objectives and motivations of Bagrow and his fellow map dealers, map collectors and map historians. Particular attention is paid to the productive but often strained relationships between Bagrow and the expanding global network of map historians with whom he collaborated while establishing and editing Imago Mundi between 1935 and his death. This network was divided into four distinct and to some extent rival constituencies (university academics, map librarians, map collectors and map dealers). The essay examines how Imago Mundi, under Bagrow’s often confrontational editorship, emerged as the central co-ordinating forum through which these constituencies communicated with each other and within which the foundations for the modern discipline of map history were established.     

The Making of the Gough Map Reconsidered: a Personal View

ABSTRACT

The claim that the Gough map was originally produced in or about the 1370s, then overwritten and re-inked about fifty years later, is unconvincing. The ‘earlier’ hand seen north of Hadrian's Wall cannot be dated accurately, but is as likely to be from after 1400 as before. Outside one small area of the map, I find almost nothing to indicate rewriting of names or other text, and even in that area the rewriting proves little about date. Nor do I find evidence for the reworking or re-inking of town signs or other pictorial elements. The claimed extensive erasure of earlier writing in the area of the map which is said to be revised is not evident to me. The serious but uneven and erratic fading of the ink on the map, which is not surprising, accounts for most of the anomalies and variations that we see. Dr Solopova's claim, based on her theory of revision, that the map displays contrasting political or ‘ideological’ emphases from two different periods seems unrelated to the actual content of the map. The known history of the development of chorography in medieval Europe indicates that the appearance of a map as advanced as the Gough map in northern Europe before 1400 is almost unimaginable.     

Maps in Italian atlases of the sixteenth century,being a comparative list of the Italian maps issued by Lafreri,Forlani, Duchetti,Bertelli and others,found in atlases

ABSTRACT

In 1771, Daniel Paterson entered into a publishing agreement with the bookseller Thomas Carnan to print and publish a travel itinerary known as Paterson’s Roads. This book was to become the most enduringly popular practical road book of the period. However, Paterson and Carnan were soon embroiled in litigation. This article examines the legal cases that arose when the geographical information contained in Paterson’s Roads was re-used, and improved upon, in a subsequent publication. It explores the background to the cases, focusing on what they reveal about the inner workings of the book and map trade of the period, as well as considering some of the broader historical ramifications. The article also demonstrates that these cases are of ongoing legal significance because they played an important role in developing some of the doctrines and principles of copyright law that continue to be controversial today.     

Mapping Spain in the Sixteenth Century: The Escorial Atlas and Pedro de Esquivel’s Notebook

ABSTRACT

The twenty-one maps of Spain that comprise the Escorial atlas (El atlas de El Escorial) and the later notebook compiled by Pedro de Esquivel for another map of Spain have long been confused. Recently identified documents in the Royal Library, Stockholm, have allowed us to recognize the two works as completely separate and to shed new light on each. In this article we describe their respective histories, starting with the Escorial atlas, now known to have been commissioned by Emperor Charles V from the Sevillian cosmographer Alonso de Santa Cruz, who between c.1538 and 1545 produced an index map and 20 regional sheets drawn to the scale of 1:400 000. We then go on to show how, later in the century (between c.1552 and 1565), Pedro de Esquivel was using a version of the topographical methods described in Peter Apian’s Cosmographia to assemble data for the map of Spain commissioned by Philip II before and just after he became king in 1556. Esquivel died in 1565 before all the data had been collected, his map was never drawn, and his notebooks, with all his astronomical measurements and calculations of angles and distances, took a curious journey that ended in Stockholm in the archives of the Royal Library of Sweden.