Francesca Fiorani. The Marvel of Maps: Art, Cartography and Politics in Renaissance . New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005. ix + 347 pp. $60.00, cloth, ISBN 978-0-300-10727-2.

Reviewed by Veronica Della Dora

Published on H-HistGeog (October, 2005)

Sixteen years have passed since Brian sciences, and theology, the author ofers a detailed Harley's infuential article, "Deconstructing the discussion of some of the most extraordinary Map," appeared in Cartographica.[1] While the works of Italian Renaissance cartography and art: work of the British geographer has provided An‐ Ignazio Danti's map cycles in Cosimo I de' Medici's glophone students with a powerful tool to look at Guardaroba Nuova of the in Flo‐ cartography critically, today his Foucauldian con‐ rence (1575) and at the Vatican Belvedere, execut‐ ception of maps as mere instruments of power ed under the commission of Pope Gregory XIII (ca. seems to have become much too restrictive, al‐ 1575-83). But rather than isolating these map cy‐ most obsolete. It indeed risks obscuring other, no cles from Renaissance culture "on the simplistic less important aspects of cartography. Recent consideration that they all contain cartographic work by Denis Cosgrove and Edward Casey has images," Fiorani investigates the interaction be‐ started to move beyond Harley's ideological focus, tween mapping as an active process and "other incorporating other dimensions of cartography, systems of representation and other symbolic such as the aesthetic, the moral, the phenomeno‐ realms" (p. 253). logical, into a perspective that ties the map and The book is structured in two parts. The for‐ mapping to specifc scientifc and artistic tradi‐ mer examines the cycle of the Guardaroba Nuova, tions and spatial perceptions.[2] inserting its decorative maps in a broader context Francesca Fiorani's The Marvel of Maps can of worldly art and "collecting" in the culture of the be situated in this context. As the art historian ex‐ Renaissance court. The latter deals with Danti's plicitly states in the introduction, hers is a book "sacred cartography" at the Vatican. The mundane "about the interactions of mapping with other and sacred aspects of Danti's map cycles refect forms of knowledge and representation in the Re‐ the complex meanings attached to the word "cos‐ naissance and Counter-Reformation" (p. 1). Span‐ mos" in the Renaissance--as a worldly "ornament" ning diferent domains such as mythology, natural and a reality in continuous expansion (thanks to H-Net Reviews geographical discovery), but also as an object of provides Renaissance historians and historical ge‐ spiritual contemplation integrating the celestial ographers with a unique counter-example: not and terrestrial orbs. In diferent ways, the cosmos only maps, isolari, and cosmographies conceptual‐ and its representations at Renaissance courts ized as cabinets of curiosities, but a true cabinet such as Cosimo I's and Gregory XIII's functioned of curiosities organized through maps. "Ptolemy's as powerful emblems. Mapping's "emblematic" geographical order was used to organize the role is made particularly explicit in the analysis of Guardaroba Nuova as an encyclopaedic collection the Guardaroba Nuova, initially conceived as a of artefacts" (p. 89). Stored in the "mapped" cup‐ small-scale re-creation of the cosmos and its won‐ boards, Cosimo's various exotica constituted ders. In Vasari's original plan this would not only metonyms of distant worlds brought together include the cartographic decorations and the huge within the unifying microcosmic space of the globe visitors can still see today, but also (never Guardaroba, but they also served as symbols of realized) images of plants and animals native to their owner's networks of friendships, political al‐ the mapped countries, and the Ptolemaic constel‐ liances (often being diplomatic gifts), and thereby lations to be depicted on the ceiling of the room his personal prestige (p. 73). (p. 24). As Fiorani convincingly shows, the Floren‐ The second part of the book takes the reader tine duke, who had made the cosmos central to through the monumental frescoed maps Gregory his own iconography through the motto "Cosmos XIII commissioned from Danti to decorate the Vat‐ Cosmoi Cosmos" (the Cosmos is Cosimo's Orna‐ ican Palace. The narrative sequence chosen by ment), had a particular fascination with cosmog‐ Fiorani (Sala Bologna--Galleria delle Mappe--Terza raphy. "A means to universal knowledge and glob‐ Loggia) is both chronological and geographical. It al control," this discipline became an increasingly moves the reader from the local scale of Bologna's appealing entertainment to Renaissance rulers bird's-eye view (1575) to the regional maps of the and led to a close relationship between the Do‐ Italian peninsula decorating the Gallery (ca. 1580) minican friar and cosmographer Egnazio Danti and culminates with the global scale of the two and his Florentine patron (pp. 41-43). hemispheres' maps in the Terza Loggia (1583). The Guardaroba Nuova was only one of a se‐ This "crescendo" refected the pope's escalation ries of microcosms at the disposal of Cosimo I. The from a "parochial vision of power" confned to his duke could in fact wander through the self-en‐ native city, to Italy as a privileged historical the‐ closed cartographic spaces of his own botanical ater for the afrmation of Catholic Christianity in gardens and menageries (p. 27). The Guardaroba the years following the Council of Trent, and ulti‐ Nuova nevertheless represents an evocative ex‐ mately to the world itself, intended as the arena ample of unique epistemological resonance for for the Church's universal mission (p. 170). But as Renaissance historians and cultural geographers. Fiorani observes, these maps were not supposed Intended as a "geographical cabinet of curiosi‐ to make territorial claims, since the Pontifcal ties," in whose cupboards (decorated with Danti's State occupied only a small portion of the Italian maps) the duke could store his precious collec‐ peninsula, and the 's domain on tions of exotica according to their geographical the rest of the world was an "a-territorial" one. As provenience, the Guardaroba materializes a pow‐ with Cosimo I, the Vatican maps played once erful metaphor. The Wunderkammer as the typi‐ again an "emblematic" role, this time intertwined cal form of geographical knowledge in the Renais‐ with sacred and historical elements, which the au‐ sance has been demonstrated by various scholars. thor skilfully singles out through an attentive [3] Fiorani's analysis of the Guardaroba repre‐ iconographic reading. sents an important contribution in this sense. It

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Of particular interest is Fiorani's analysis of only theoretical) interaction between science and the Maps' Gallery, that part of Danti's Vatican sacred space in the Renaissance (e.g., Danti plac‐ work best known to the public. Danti's forty mon‐ ing an armillary sphere and an astrolabe on the umental frescoed maps provided visitors to the façade of , or a meridian on Vatican Palace with a papal interpretation of the foor of Saint Gregory chapel). Church history. As was customary in the Renais‐ Readers of H-HistGeog will fnd in this book sance, Ptolemaic geography was used as a "natu‐ an innovative way to look at Renaissance cartog‐ ralizing" link between disparate historical events raphy, in line with the most recent methodological reaching from Classical antiquity to the modern approaches. But this is equally appealing reading period, from the Church of Constantine to that of for Renaissance historians and historians of sci‐ Gregory XIII (p. 176). Fiorani's true contribution ence, who will certainly fnd interesting insights. to the study of these maps lies in her association However, if in this sense Fiorani's multidisci‐ with the scenes represented on the ceiling. Relat‐ plinary approach proves successful, it also pro‐ ing to the Eucharist, the foundation of holy build‐ duces some limitations. Danti's work certainly re‐ ings, or pious deeds performed by saintly fgures, mains a unique achievement in Renaissance car‐ many of these scenes were in turn "mapped" by tography. But to what extent does it represent an Danti on the Italian peninsula. In this sense, maps isolated case? Can it be contextualized within a served Gregory XIII as a convincing instrument to broader tradition of map cycles? In other words, respond to Protestant dogmatic controversies and can this book speak for a broader number of simi‐ proclaim once again papal spiritual authority in‐ lar case studies, or make broader epistemological side and beyond the Italian peninsula (p. 183). claims beyond Danti's work? This the author does One of the most original aspects of the book is not make clear. The book nevertheless remains an the reading of these "map cycles" not only as two- important contribution and an inspiring reading dimensional visual representations, but as true for a broad multidisciplinary audience. three-dimensional realities, embedded in very Notes specifc architectural spaces. In this sense the au‐ [1]. J.B. Harley, "Deconstructing the Map," Car‐ thor responds to an increasing cross-disciplinary tographica, 26 (1989): pp.1-20. interest in the phenomenology of representation. [4] The experience of walking through the Vatican [2]. Denis Cosgrove, ed., Mappings (London: Gallery and the materiality of Cosimo's collections Reaktion Books, 1999); and Denis Cosgrove, Apol‐ give their respective cartographic representations lo's Eye (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University a completely new favor. The book's profuse illus‐ Press, 2001); and Edward Casey, Representing trations (no less than 130 in back and white and Place: Landscape Painting and Maps (Minneapo‐ 30 in color), including not only captions of halls lis: University of Minnesota Press, 2002). and galleries, but also "geographical" pairings be‐ [3]. See for example Mary Campbell, Wonder tween some of the Guardaroba's maps and exotic and Science: Imagining Worlds in Early Modern objects from Cosimo's collections, are efective in Europe (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1999); conveying such phenomenological experience. Paula Findlen, "The Formation of a Scientifc Com‐ Fiorani's "three-dimensional" approach also re‐ munity: Natural History in 16th-century Italy," in fects recent interest in "locating science," best ex‐ Natural Particulars: Nature and the Disciplines in emplifed by Livingstone's work.[5] Not limiting Renaissance Europe, ed. A. Grafton and N. Sirasi herself to "maps," but rather extending her re‐ (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1999), pp.369-400; and search to "mapping" as a practice, Fiorani suc‐ Frank Lestringant, Mapping the Renaissance ceeds in showing the constant "physical" (and not World: The Geographical Imagination in the Age

3 H-Net Reviews of Discovery (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994). [4]. See Casey, Representing Place. [5]. David Livingstone, Putting Science in Its Place (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003).

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Citation: Veronica Della Dora. Review of Fiorani, Francesca. The Marvel of Maps: Art, Cartography and Politics in Renaissance Italy. H-HistGeog, H-Net Reviews. October, 2005.

URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=10923

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