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This dissertation investigates the thirty-seven entries in the Descripci�n Geogr�fico-Moral de la Di�cesis de Goathemala (DGM) that correspond to present-day El Salvador and the R�o Lempa basin. Each of these entries is a description of a parish in the diocese and includes census data, ethnographic reflections, and watercolor aerial views that operate as maps for each parish. Informed by the latest advancements in decolonial methodologies and critical race studies, I offer the first art historical reading of these aerial views and contextualize them among other Spanish colonial cartographical technologies. I situate the DGM’s images among contemporaneous cartographical production to show that this was the most ambitious visualization of Central America yet attempted. In addition, I evaluate Cortes y Larraz’s subjectivity in America –– imagined in the early modern period as the “New World” –– to understand biases in the historical record that affect even census data. In contrast to previous scholarship, which has taken much of Cortes y Larraz’s census at face value, I offer a more nuanced view of eighteenth-century racial politics that included a complex set of negotiations between church officials, colonial administrators, and inhabitants of color. I show that the racial diversity in the R�o Lempa basin was far too complicated for eighteenth-century information technologies to properly record. Consequently, works such as the DGM accelerated and promoted mestizaje.

We develop a practical computational methodology based on memes theory for studying historical cartography. We also propose to investigate the limits of replication fidelity, and the link between memes and their expression, through a case study on the Napoleonic cadastre.

The Enlightenment poses a particular problem for map history. The period acquired a special significance as the historical fulcrum in the narrative of the history of cartography. This essay provide...

Kenneth Nebenzahl, internationally known antiquarian book- and mapseller, author, and supporter and benefactor of the field of the history of cartography, passed away peacefully at his home in Gl...

After 30 years the International Conference on the History of Cartography (ICHC) returned to Amsterdam for the 28th meeting entitled ‘Early Maps, Modern Perspectives. Understanding Early Maps in th...

Five static graphic strategies support the transition from one spatial pattern to another. Chess maps, as a telling sequence of instantaneous views, use a common geographic framework to narrate a geographic story. By contrast, rate-of-change maps use numerical measurements to describe spatial variation in the rapidity or slowness of change. A third type, the dance map, mimics the step-by-step footwork of rehearsed choreography, analogous to the movements of troops, materiel, and intelligence in a military campaign (A highly focused dance map, the centrographic map, treats a spatial-temporal narrative as a statistical summary.) Additional strategies include flow maps and frontal maps, a military/meteorological analog. Dynamic cartography and the interactive manipulation of history maps afford new insights as well as alternative interpretations.

For many centuries on general geographical maps and early maritime maps geological information was rarely included. The map of the Wadi Hammamat valley, the Borgia world map, the Catalan world map and Carta de nauigar per le Isole nouamente... portolan chart were indicated as examples. Places where minerals occurred were presented mainly using textual descriptions. Among Renaissance maps and later maps published before the second half of the 18th century, the map of the Kingdom of Bavaria by Philipp Apian and the map of the Duchy of Świdnica in Silesia by Johann Wieland and Matthaus Schubart were discussed as examples. Distribution of raw materials and places of their extraction were shown using simple geometric signs with graphic characteristics for a given period. Mineralogical maps published in the second half of the 18th century were described based on the example of maps by Jean-Étienne Guettard and Johann Jirasek. Their content was compared with the texts accompanying them, developed under patronage of the contemporary scientific institutions and relevant methods of geological information presentation were described. From the late Renaissance symbols signifying extraction sites of raw materials had simplified and rather random shapes which indicates ‘unhurried’ development of cartographic methods on geological maps.

This book is, in short, exactly what a history of cartography book should be: a detailed but thoroughly engaging study and extensive analysis of a fascinating primary source, clearly presented and ...

If one is interested in the evolution of cartography and the geospatial sciences, Connections and Content: Reflections on Networks and the History of Cartography is an ideal place to begin. Mark Mo...

Among the myriad allegories covering the Room of Maps in Palazzo Farnese, the four personified continents stand out around the vast world map. First of all the analysis focuses on their formal strategies of presentation and the vocabulary of attributes they adopt, borrowed from ancient Roman coinage, to investigate the reasons behind their classical-style robe and the ideological statement emerging from this adoption. This article aims to interpret the representation in relation to the patron’s communicational needs: indeed, the personifications are organically integrated with the various components of the hall to form a complex celebratory organism expressing the ideals of Cardinal Alessandro Farnese regarding his own temporal and spiritual role in the world and the role of the counter-reformed Church more broadly. In so doing, I also compare the figurative code deployed in the Room to the previous Camerino dei Continenti in Rome’s Palazzo Firenze and three lunettes in Rome’s Palazzo Ruggeri (1553 and 1591, respectively), outlining visual and semantic analogies. The Camerino offers an early representation of our theme brimming with mythological and erudite references - in the panel of the vault with Europa, Asia, and Africa - as well as exotic ones in the external ornamentation. Even the later lunettes depict an oecumene which is anachronistically still tripartite, though visually anchored in a recent source (i.e. the Theatrum orbis terrarum frontispiece). Starting from the main case-study and considering these less-studied frescoes, it is thus possible to delve into forms of confluence (intertwining or instances of resistance) between the world of antiquity and the world of geographic exploration, as displayed by each image, eventually shedding light on potential motivations and iconological implications.

This issue of the Bibliography includes items published from 2013 to 2015. The form of entries reflects the order and punctuation conventions of ISBD (M) : International Standard Bibliographic Desc...

The article examines all of the extant hand-colored exemplars of the 1513 edition of Ptolemy’s Geography, whose maps were made by Martin Waldseemuller, in an effort to identify the coloring scheme intended by the creators of the edition. Almost half of the existing exemplars were found to have essentially the same coloring scheme. Further, some remarks made by Waldseemuller about the coloring of maps, as well as some experiments with color printing of maps in the 1513 edition of Ptolemy, allow the identification of this scheme as the workshop scheme. The results shed light not only on Waldseemuller’s workshop practices and early modern handcoloring techniques, but also on the cartographic and aesthetic philosophy behind the coloring of these maps.

In 2015, the 26th International Conference on the History of Cartography took place in Belgium’s second city, Antwerp. From 12 to 18 July, 239 registered participants and twenty-two accompanying pe...

Five manuscript maps of the early sixteenth century have been noted in the literature of the history of cartography for the place-name Bimini where Florida is today. An examination of the sources for these references reveals there are only two such maps. The other maps — bibliographical ghost maps — arose because of reliance upon secondary sources.

The paper's objective is to demonstrate: a) Stanisław Pachołowiecki's Atlas Księstwa Połockiego (Rome 1580) as the first part of a major propaganda action conducted by the royal chancellery; b) the course of its publication; c) who was engaged in its production. At first, the author reminds that Atlas was made during the Livonian War. The main commissioners were King Stephen Báthory and Chancellor Jan Zamoyski. The next part presents the chief propagandistic text created by the Polish chancellery, Edictum regium de supplicationibus, printed in Polatsk in early September 1579. It is an account of the circumstances of the capture of the city by Stephen Báthory's army. The author reviews the text's distribution and translation into English among other languages. It turns out that Edictum, issued several times in 1579, provides the most significant context for the Atlas.The author argues e.g. that the Atlas was to be a commentary for the edict. Next, the process of the publication of maps is explained. The author discusses the circumstances in which the decision to publish them was made, as well as the criteria for selecting cartographic material and the final redaction. He then indicates who was responsible for delivering the text to Rome, when it happened, who was engaged in its publication, and when it was published. The comparison of the dates of the Atlas's shipment to Rome and publication of other texts enables the author to hypothesise about a coherent propaganda action. He shows that its aim was, above all, to win foreign public opinion. In result, four different types of texts were created: a historical narrative (Edictum), a collection of maps (Atlas), a Latin panegyric speech by A. Patrycy Nidecki and a Latin ode by J. Kochanowski. The last part of the paper presents the connections between various persons forming the human network directly or indirectly related to the publication of the atlas and the Polish propaganda action.

Original holograph and manuscript cartographic materials, for potential or eventual publication by the Royal Geographical Society, survive in considerable variety, number and condition. The RGS’s first commissioned map (1830) was a facsimile of Hereford Cathedral’s medieval manuscript mappamundi. From 1854 Map Room staff became draughtsmen of large diagram maps for lectures; until 1877 external draughtsmen were generally employed to copy or produce the RGS’s published illustrations. Manuscript itineraries, astronomical observations for position-fixing, sketch maps (some derived from ‘native’ or indigenous sources), and printed items (Admiralty charts, War Office maps) were bases for compiling maps and large diagrams. Survey Department Egypt’s Capt. H.G. Lyons sent 6200 copies of the Nile basin orographical map for his Journal article (Lyons. Geogr J 32(5):[449]–480, 1908). Compilation rules (data sources noted), toponymy (transliteration, Romanisation and orthography), lettering styles, and technical processes (steel, then quill, pens to scribing) evolved. To recoup its expenses the Society hired out or loaned its illustrations and artefacts to other events and institutions (Herbert. The Royal Geographical Society. In: Monmonier (ed) The history of cartography, vol 6. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, pp 1371–1375, 2015).

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.

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 Almagia. 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.

Advanced doctoral students whose dissertations are substantially concerned with the history of cartography are invited to contact the editor of this section (Dr Elizabeth Baigent, Wycliffe Hall, Ox...