A Content Analysis of Imago Mundi, 1935–2010

ABSTRACT

The 592 research articles in the first 62 volumes of Imago Mundi, from 1935 to 2010, are analysed to discern trends in the scholarly approaches, biases and interests of historians of cartography. Particular attention is paid to map historians’ preferred historical periods and topical subjects of study, to their nationalistic tendencies and to the shifting importance of traditional, internal and socio-cultural approaches to map history.     

Chronicle for 1993

Abstract

Theory is not a goal in itself but a means of enriching the history of cartography by stimulating new research questions and objectives. In this paper the concept of ‘transparent maps’ (carriers of an image of the external reality of the world) and ‘opaque maps’ is introduced. The notion is approached structurally (standards of graphical representation, drawing, geometry, text); through the sociology of the map (map makers, institutions, the public); and through seeing maps in their cultural and historical context (an approach which raises issues of the definitional boundaries of the history of cartography and which is arguably one of the most stimulating perspectives today as fostered by, in particular, contributors to the History of Cartography). Finally, attention is drawn to three important topics for the research agenda: the links between maps and culture; maps as a language of communication and as instruments of power; and the links between perception, logic and mnemonics.     

‘I draw a line here and open a new chapter’: The Bagrow-Almagià Correspondence 1947–1955

ABSTRACT

The Imago Mundi archives, held in the Map Library of the British Library in London, contain the correspondence between Leo Bagrow, the founding editor of Imago Mundi, and the Italian geographer and historian of cartography Roberto Almagià. Their correspondence, which continued throughout the late 1940s and early 1950s, brought out the worst in their very different characters, at times to an almost comical extent. The exchanges reveal Bagrow’s somewhat brusque editorial methods but also show his vision for Imago Mundi and demonstrate his total dedication to the history of cartography. The letters also provide a revealing commentary on the immense difficulties of international communication and research in the immediate post-war years, and the persistence of the cultural nationalism that dominated the history of cartography as an academic pursuit in this period.     

Theory and the history of cartography

Abstract

Cartographic history has been dominated by an empiricism that treats the nature of maps as self‐evident and which denies the presence of any theory. In contrast, this paper argues that theories lie at the root of all empirical study whether or not they are acknowledged. The linear, progressive model of cartographic development, for example, is not a law deduced from historical evidence; if it were it would be easily and quickly dismissed. It derives instead from our cultural beliefs concerning the nature of maps, which is to say from our unexamined theories. Historians of cartography need to be critical of their assumptions and preconceptions. Theoretical discussions in the history of cartography must address not whether we should use theory at all but to which theories we should adhere. It is inadequate simply to knock theories down. We must establish a debate in which old understandings of maps, of their creation, and of their use are replaced by better (that is, more consistent and coherent) theories.     

Caspar Vopel's Ventures in Sixteenth-Century Celestial Cartography

ABSTRACT

This paper concerns the undertakings in celestial cartography of the sixteenth-century Cologne cartographer Caspar Vopel. Copies of his printed celestial globe and of the celestial maps included on his world map are also described. Vopel's celestial mappings display his extraordinary interest in astronomical myths through a series of conspicuous iconographic features. In particular, Vopel's introduction of the images of Antinous and Coma Berenices is revealed to have been inspired by a humanist edition of the Ptolemaic star catalogue. Finally, a study of the celestial maps on the copies of Vopel's world map by Valvassore (1558) and by Van den Putte (1570) shows that these represent different editions of Vopel's world map and that the celestial maps on the world map of Matteo Pagano were in turn copied from those on the world map of Valvassore.     

Mercator’s Lithuanian–Russian Borderlands: Russiae pars amplificata (1595) and Its Polish Sources

abstract

This article focuses on the inset on Gerardus Mercator’s large map of Russia cum confiniis [Russia with surrounding lands] that was published in his Atlas (1595), and the map Moscovia [Muscovy] published by Jodocus Hondius in the Atlas minor (1607). Comparison of the contents of Mercator’s inset map, titled Russiae pars amplificata [Part of Russia enlarged] and Hondius’s Moscovia map with the Polish propaganda poem Raid on Muscovy by Jan Kochanowski that had appeared in 1583—just after the war between the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and Muscovy—led to the suggestion that both Mercator’s and Hondius’s maps were based on Polish–Lithuanian narrative sources as well as on a map drawn by the Polish royal cartographer Maciej Strubicz. To test the hypothesis, a historical-linguistic analysis of the orthography of the map’s toponyms and hydronyms was employed to distinguish their Polish, German and Latin characteristics. The result confirms that the two maps were indeed based on a Polish military map containing a hidden Polish propaganda message.     

Chronicle

Concepts in the history of cartography, a review and a perspective. By M. J. Blakemore and J. B. Harley. Cartographica, volume 17, number 4, winter 1980, monograph 26. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1980. Pp. 120.

Understanding maps: a systematic history of their use and development. By A. G. Hodgkiss. Folkestone: Dawson, 1981. Pp. 209.

La carte, image des civilizations. By George Kish. Paris: Seuil. Pp. 287.

Cartes et figures de la terre. Paris: Centre Georges Pompidou, 1980. Pp. 480.

The mapmakers. Byjohn Noble Wilford. London: Junction Books, 1981. Pp. xi+169.

Papers of the Nordenskiöld seminar on the history of cartography and the maintenance of cartographic archives, Espoo (Finland), September 12–15, 1979. Edited by Kerkko Hakulinen and Arvo Peltonen. Helsinki: Nordenskiöld‐samfundet, 1981. Pp. 246.

Looking at old maps. By John Booth. Westbury, Wiltshire: Cambridge House Books, 1979. Pp. xiii + 167.

The map librarian in the modem world: essays in honour of Walter W. Ristow. Edited by Helen Wallis and Lothar Zögner. Presented by the IFLA Section of Geography and Map Libraries. München, New York, London, Paris: K. G. Saur, 1979. Pp. 295.

Somerset maps: Day &; Masters 1782, Greenwood 1822. Introduction by J. B. Harley and R. W. Dunning. Taunton: Somerset Record Society, 1981. Pp. 37 with facsimiles in 15 sheets.

The ‘Rhinebeck’ panorama of London. Introduction by Ralph Hyde. London: London Topographical Society, Publication No. 125, 1981. Pp. 6, pl. 4.

A history of the Ordnance Survey. Edited by W. A. Seymour. Folkestone: Dawson, 1980. Pp. 359.

Wall‐maps of the 16th and 17th centuries. 3: The world map of 1611 by Pieter van den Keere. Edited by Gunther Schilder and James Welu. Amsterdam: Nico Israel, 1980. Pp. 25, pl. 12.

Johann Baptista Homann, die Homännischen Erben, Matthäus Seutter und ihre Landkarten. Beiträge zur Geschichte der Kartographie. By C. Sandler. Amsterdam: Meridian Publishing, 1979. Pp. 152.

Alte Pläne von Stadt und Festung Saarlouis. By Fritz Hellwig. Saarbrücken: Saarbrücker Druckerei und Verlag, 1980. Pp. xxxix + 120.

Monumenta cartografica. Dudavar Eröditési Térképe 1749. Budapest: Zrinye Katonai Kiadó, 1980. Pp. 10.

Atlanti Napoletani del diciannovesimo secolo. By Vladimiro Valerio. Naples: Luigi Regina, 1980. Pp. 114.

Chung‐kuo ti‐t'u‐hsueh shih [History of cartography of China]. By Ch'en Cheng‐siang. Hong Kong: Shang‐wu Yin‐shu Kuan, 1979. Pp. 96.

Indianische Karlen Nordamerikas: Beiträge zur historischen Kartographie vom 16. bis zum 19. Jahrhundert. By Rainer Vollmar. Berlin: Deitrich Reimer Verlag, 1981. Pp. 179.

Fire insurance maps in the Library of Congress. Plans of North American cities and towns produced by the Sanbom Map Company. A checklist compiled by the Reference and Bibliography Section, Geography and Map Division. Washington: Library of Congress, 1981. Pp. xiv + 773.

The cartography of Northern Virginia: facsimile reproductions of maps dating from 1608 to 1915. Selected and introduced by Richard W. Stephenson. Fairfax County, Virginia: Office of Comprehensive Planning, 1981. Pp. 144.

The Northpart of America. By Coolie Verner and Basil Stuart‐Stubbs. Toronto: Academic Press Canada Limited, 1979. Pp. xi + 292.

The maps of Canada: a guide to official Canadian maps, charts, atlases and gazetteers. By N. L. Nicholson and L. M. Sebert. Folkestone: Dawson; Hamden, Conn. : Archon, 1981. Pp. x + 251.

Das Geheimnis des Drachenschwanzes. Die Kenntnis Amerikas vor Kolumbus. By Paul Gallez. Berlin: Dietrich Reimer Verlag, 1980. Pp. 184.     

Evolving Ideas: J. B. d’Anville’s Maps of Southern Africa, 1725–1749

This article focuses on the changes made to the cartography of southern Africa between 1725 and 1749 by the French geographer Jean Baptiste Bourguignon d’Anville. The maps in question were produced in collaboration with the Portuguese ambassador Dom Luís da Cunha as part of d’Anville’s plan to demonstrate what lay between the Portuguese colonies of Angola in the west and Mozambique in the east and to establish a link across the continent. The maps he produced in the first two phases of his mapping of southern Africa (1725–1731) echoed the traditional horror vacui. The vast blank that appeared on his map of Afrique of 1749, however, has to be seen as d’Anville intended—the integration of empty space on a map with Enlightenment rationalization of geography.     

Feminist cartography and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal on gender equality: Emotional responses to three thematic maps

Thematic maps facilitate spatial understanding of patterns and exceptions. Cognitive ability, spatial cognition, and emotional state are related, yet there is little research about map readers’ emotions. Feminist critiques of cartography recognize emotion and affect as legitimate experiences on par with quantitative ways of knowing. We conducted an online survey to measure users’ affective states before and after engaging with three thematic map types. The maps showed data from the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal to achieve gender equality, on the proportion of girls and women aged 15 to 49 who have undergone female genital mutilation/cutting. Participants viewed a choropleth, a cartogram, and a repeating icon tile map; completed map-related tasks; rated certain map qualities; rated their affective states before and after engaging with the maps; and answered open-ended questions. The maps piqued curiosity and evoked emotions for most users, while some users perceived the thematic maps as clinical or neutral despite the sensitive topic. After viewing the maps, female participants who were affected expressed deeper engagement in their open-ended comments than males. Traditionally, cartography construes the human experience as male experience and denies or trivializes women's experiences. Our findings corroborate feminist critiques of this disembodiment and entrenched rational rhetoric of maps.     

Saxton's Maps of England and Wales: The Accuracy of Anglia and Britannia and Their Relationship to Each Other and to the County Maps

ABSTRACT

From measurements of the graticules on Saxton's two general maps of England and Wales—the atlas map Anglia and the wall map Britannia—together with other evidence, it is argued that neither map was drawn according to any specific projection, but that both were effectively produced as ‘flat-earth’ maps with the graticules superimposed afterwards. Digital versions of Saxton's maps and of a modern map, the 1:1 million Ordnance Survey transport map, are used in a number of comparisons by means of the computer program MapAnalyst. These comparisons allow the scales of the two Saxton maps to be determined. They also show that the maps are of almost the same accuracy in terms of the positioning of settlements, typically within about 4.6 kilometres, in spite of a difference in scale of a factor of about 3.6. This fact and the direct comparison of the two Saxton maps in MapAnalyst show that they are basically the same map, and it is concluded that a version of the wall map was the first to be drawn and that Anglia is a reduced copy prepared for the atlas. The lengths of Saxton's miles as used on the two maps are calculated and compared with other determinations. The relationship between the two general maps and the county maps is briefly considered, and it is provisionally concluded that the relationship is a close one.     

Marinus of Tyre's place in the Columbus concepts

Summary

Thomas Jefferys (died 1771) was one of the most significant London mapsellers of the mid‐eighteenth century. He enjoyed an international reputation and apparent prosperity as a publisher of American and European maps during the Seven Years War. Yet in 1766 he became bankrupt. The paper offers an interpretation of Jefferys’ bankruptcy in the light of his business activities. After reconstructing the main phases of his career, the conclusion is reached that the causes of bankruptcy only operated in the period after 1765, when he became involved in the production of a series of English county maps based on original field survey. Hitherto, his maps had been compiled from inexpensive secondary sources; the field surveys involved a new set of costs which led to his failure.

The bankruptcy explains an otherwise puzzling change of ownership in some of his maps after 1765—especially the acquisition by Robert Sayer of a substantial share in his enterprises. These events may have wider implications in the history of eighteenth‐century cartography. Many map‐publishers were under‐capitalized and had to survive on low profit margins. These, in turn, may have retarded cartographical progress; the conclusion reached is that plagiarism was frequently an economic necessity for many mapsellers.     

The Railways of Britain: An Unstudied Map Corpus

ABSTRACT

Railway mapping, a distinctive genre of cartography, came into existence with the invention of railway transport in Britain. The planned route for the first public railway, the Stockton & Darlington Railway, was surveyed by 1820 as a statutory requirement for the Act of Parliament that was necessary before construction could proceed. The Stockton & Darlington Railway was granted its Act in 1821 and opened in 1825. From then on, an abundance of maps, plans, diagrams and technical drawings were created to enable railways to be planned, constructed and operated; to be changed, developed and regulated; to attract business and passengers; and to provide railway staff with a range of specialist tools. Today, Britain probably has the largest surviving corpus of such material, but owing to the essentially private nature of the preparation and use of railway maps, it remains largely unstudied and therefore scarcely evaluated in terms of its historical worth. This paper summarizes the archival history of Britain's railway maps and describes eleven broad categories of railway cartography that collectively form a coherent body of maps covering much of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and which await better access and comprehensive study. It also underlines the urgency of ensuring the preservation of the railway map archive from further loss and destruction.     

The Influence of Goethe's Farbenlehre on Early Geological Map Colouring: Goethe's Contribution to Christian Keferstein's General Charte von Teutschland (1821)

An analysis of Goethe's Farbenlehre (Theory of Colours), and of its significance for the development of geological mapping, requires an interdisciplinary approach and specific knowledge of both the history of cartography and the science of chromatics. Thus far there has been little research in either of these areas by historians of geological cartography or by students of Goethe's Farbenlehre. In particular, the influence of Goethe's Theory of Colours on early geological map colouring has not yet been explored, and the present article is an attempt to rectify that omission. After an introduction to the emergence of geological maps during the Age of Enlightenment, the discussion focuses on Goethe's substantial contribution to the selection of colours for Christian Keferstein's General Charte von Teutschland (1821). Detailed study of the available textual and cartographical source material reveals that Goethe applied the principles of his Farbenlehre as a basis for the colour chart that Keferstein used to delineate the rock formations shown on his map. The article concludes with a brief consideration of the extent to which the joint Goethe–Keferstein venture influenced the future of geological map design.     

从宋代诗文看幽思与胜览思想对宋代地图学发展的影响

幽思与胜览是两宋时代地图学中的两个重要思想脉络。在思想感情与意识形态之外,它们对当时地图学发展的影响大致体现在这样几个方面:促进了政府测绘边疆地图的同时,激发了私人对边地的探险旅行和地图测绘活动;各类"天下"舆图的绘制,在文化和空间上塑造了王朝整体地域形象;推动了历史地图和州郡类区域地理图的不断发展。另一个值得注意的现象则是,在强烈的思想感情驱使下,石碑作为一种特殊的材质成为宋代地图绘制的重要载体,推动了地图绘制形式的发展。与幽思相比,胜览更多地体现了宋代地图学发展中的乐观因素,推动了八景图意象的兴起和山岳地图的流行,在中国地图学中开出一朵灿烂夺目的以审美为核心的地图分支。     

The Map,the Other and the public visual image

This article explores the connection between Cartography and Otherness, and intersects map and visual studies with the question of racial/ethnic identity. With the aim of making arguments through images, a visual/verbal text is staged to reflect on the ‘Map-Other’ connection in past and present times. Inspired by the epistemological turn from representation towards practice currently experienced within map theory, the article interrogates the various creative ways in which art, advertising, public communication and related fields enable post-representational ways of portraying maps. Public visual images of cartography can be read not only as an exposure of the firm, ideological meaning of maps, but also as illustrations of how maps work as shared, embodied and empowering objects. The treatment of maps as socialised, performed and relational thereby results in an involvement of Others as protagonists rather than subjects.     

Draft town maps for John speed's theatre of the empire of great Britaine

ABSTRACT

A unique Hebrew map of the Exodus and the Holy Land was printed in Mantua, Italy, in the mid-sixteenth century. This map is graphically and artistically different from all other Hebrew maps, both earlier and later. The aim here is to analyze the map and the text that is printed on it, explore the reasons for, and the context of, its printing, and identify its sources within contemporary Jewish scholarship and Christian cartography. The only known exemplar of this map is in the Zentralbibliothek in Zürich, Switzerland.     

“Follow the Tree Flowers”: Fugitive Mapping in Beloved

This article attempts to analyse mapping practices at the intersection of geography, black studies and literary studies, in order to reassess the political and pedagogical possibilities of mapping under late capitalism. I turn to Toni Morrison’s novel Beloved to track black cartographic practices otherwise obscured or, as Katherine McKittrick writes, “rendered ungeographic”. The novel offers a hidden and unauthorised archive for the often clandestine geographic practices that make possible fugitivity from the mechanics of “slaveholding agro‐capitalism” and its ongoing legacy. As an unofficial archive of black geographic practice, Morrison’s novel might itself be thought of as a map: a contemporary mode of memorialising the depth of place, relation, and navigation—a depth no two‐dimensional map can accommodate. Finally, this article demonstrates the valuable interventions that black studies and black creative production can make within the subfields of critical cartography and critical geography.