The World under the Stars: Astrological Geography and the Bologna 1477 Edition of Ptolemy’s Cosmographia

ABSTRACT

This article is a re-examination of the first complete printed edition of Ptolemy’s Cosmographia (Bologna, de Lapis, 1477), hitherto considered flawed and defective. An investigation of the status and priorities of the team of court astrologers responsible for this edition, and an examination of the alterations they made to Ptolemy’s maps, suggests that their aim was a redaction intentionally different from existing versions of the Geography. It is suggested that the editors sought to adjust the arrangement of provinces from that recommended in Ptolemy’s Geography (book VIII) to the astrological arrangement detailed in his Tetrabiblos (book II) and that they modified the content of the key regional maps accordingly. In this light, the Bologna 1477 edition underlines the importance of assessing the reception of Ptolemy’s geographical work against a cultural background in which astrology prevailed as an integrated system of knowledge, practices and beliefs.     

《西游补》所附“杂记”考辨

《西游补》所附《读西游补杂记》一文的写作时代和作者历来模糊不清,致使不少研究者误用作明末材料。本文对其写作时间及其作者详加考辨,指出该文作于清朝咸丰年间,从而纠正了学术界的长期误用情况。     

Maps and Memory: Readings of Cartography in Twelfth- and Thirteenth-Century Song China

ABSTRACT

This essay traces the early history of the genre of the empire map in China, examines twelfth-century steles and printed maps of the Chinese territories, and analyses contemporary viewings and readings of maps in this genre. It argues that such maps reached a much broader readership of literate elites over the course of the Song Dynasty (960–1279) and acquired new political significance as maps became powerful symbols in debates concerning the pros and cons of negotiated peace.     

《班马字类》的版本源流

本文考察了《班马字类》的版本源流及系统,并对主要版本的优劣进行了简要评述。     

格国、倗国考

西周有格伯,格国故地在河南荥阳市北的张楼村一带。金文“倗” 和“冯”二字相通,“冯” 地与格国相邻。     

A terrible beauty is bought: 1916, commemoration and commodification

Abstract

Mindful of Benedict Anderson’s emphasis on Imagined Communities on the power of print culture – and print-capitalism – to shape and share national ideas and identities, this article offers a comparative analysis of the commemorations of 1798 and 1916 by looking at commemorative ephemera: kitschy memorabilia, themed merchandise, newspaper cuttings and advertisements, handbills and inventively branded commodities, as important cultural texts which purveyed ideological values and meanings at the time of their production. It suggests that the consumer sphere allows us to shed light on the commemorative discourses these ephemeral objects produce, retelling and retailing the risings in question. Texts often regarded as throwaway or lowbrow vied for their share in the ideological marketplace to form part of the heritage of 1798 and 1916, the centenary of the one feeding into the ferment of the other. The reception and representation of the pivotal figures of Wolfe Tone and James Connolly is discussed through the prism of Thomas Richards’ conception of commodity culture, and attention is paid to counter-commemorative strands as well as positive rhetorics of remembrance.     

The Secrets of a long life: The Dutch firm of covens & mortier (1685–1866) and their copper plates

Abstract

Commercial map publishing firms between the mid‐sixteenth and mid‐nineteenth centuries needed to prolong the life of their copper plates for as long as possible. In order to avoid the costs of engraving new plates, the famous Dutch publishing house of Covens & Mortier of Amsterdam (1685–1866) amended existing plates for topographical and politico‐administrative changes, engraving errors, imprint alterations and marks resulting from general wear. Not only were the plates altered, but the printed maps themselves were sometimes also modified: a new title cartouche might be pasted on or a date or part of the text scratched away. In these ways the map publishing firm was a master of creative solutions as regards both the re‐use of old copper plates and the ‘renewal’ of old printed maps.     

Data on the Antebellum South

Abstract.

In this article, the authors consider translation and translators as agents in globalization processes and focus on their role in the “first globalization” within the Spanish empire from 1500 onward. Combining concepts and methods from history and translation studies, they take the Southern Netherlands as a geographical center where translators, initiators of translations, printers, and other multilingual specialists were able to provide texts that circulated in the whole of the empire. The authors show how a relational database comprising multiple data on translations and the people related to them helps to uncover networks among the participants in the translation process and to discover if and how authorities were involved. Finally, the database sheds light on the translation centers and the empire's language system.     

Reading menageries: using eighteenth-century print sources to historicise the sensorium of menagerie spectators and their encounters with exotic animals

Histories of exotic animal collection and display in Britain during the long eighteenth century have not been conventionally concerned with the sensory or bodily experiences of menagerie spectators. Olfactory, haptic and aural impressions – as well as the affective responses of laughter, disgust, anger and sympathy, are conspicuously absent in attempts to historicise animal collections. This paper principally argues that these often historically intangible and transient sensory experiences with animals were culturally significant acts or readings that produced meaning. To understand how spectators utilised their senses as an interpretive tool in reading menageries the article draws upon eighteenth-century understandings of the senses and bodily comfort. The manipulation of exotic animal bodies in menageries during the long eighteenth century had significant implications for British spectators. It is argued that their specific notions of Britishness in relationship to these captive animals from foreign climes articulated elite cultural notions of gender, climate and national character. In writing a sensory history of exotic animals in eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Britain the author contextualises the reading of contemporary print material with the concomitant experience of the material animals to which this print matter referred. What emerges is a reminder that the act of reading should not be isolated from the production of knowledge through other embodied experiences since such a dichotomy is arguably problematic for historians.