The Belgium - Luxembourg Border Formation
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MAPS IN May 2018 Newsletter No HISTORY 61 The Belgium - Luxembourg border formation The Portuguese voyages to the Spice Islands Special 20th anniversary celebration ISSN 1379-3306 www.bimcc.org 2 SPONSORS EDITORIAL 3 Swaen.com Contents Intro Monthly Internet map auctions Dear Map Friends, and Gallery Exhibitions Quality consignments welcome By the time you read this issue of Maps in History our Cosmography at the Louvre Abu Dhabi museum.. ................. 4 excursion to Arlon and Luxembourg will be very close, or already past, depending on the logistics of getting our magazine edited, printed and distributed! The Looks at Books theme of this excursion, ‘1839: when Luxembourg was last cut to pieces’, was chosen by the organizers Pierre Mario Cam's 'Companions in Geography' ..........................................5 Parmentier and Marie-Anne Dage to highlight the complex history of the border between Luxembourg History and Cartography and Belgium. Before, during or after the excursion, I recommend you read the article summarizing this The Portuguese voyages to the Spice Islands and the history, written by our dear President, Caroline De first European maps and sketches of Southeast Asia, Candt; a very useful complement to that excursion. SCANNING - GEOREFERENCING 1502-1554 ......................................................................................................................................7 AND DIGITISING OF OLD MAPS Another most interesting feature of this issue follows The formation of the border between Belgium and our last conference on maps of Indonesia: Francisco Luxembourg in 1830-1839 ................................................................................... 15 Roque de Oliveira has kindly accepted to write down his presentation, ‘The Portuguese voyages to the Spice WILLEM BLAEU - 23cm GLOBE SET - WALL MAP OF EUROPE ON VELLUM - SEA CHART BOOK Islands’, which shows that the VOC was not the only How I got into Cartography IJzerweglaan 48 I 9050 Gent Belgium one to explore that part of the world... www.swaen.com | [email protected] [email protected] I www.aquaterra.be Interview with Michael Bischoff .......................................................... 23 th UK tel. +44 750 937 0039 T +32 (0)9 230 55 15 I F +32 (0)9 230 21 10 Celebrations of the 20 anniversary of the Brussels Map Circle have already begun! Our MAPAF (Map Brussels Map Circle news Afternoon) on 24 March opened with a reception offered by the Circle to its members on the top floor Annual General Meeting (AGM) & Activity report ...............25 of the Royal Library of Belgium (KBR). Speeches over a glass of ‘bubbles’ evoked the various activities of The MAPAF 2018 and special anniversary celebration....27 the past twenty years, with emphasis on the special relationship which has been established with the KBR The Brussels Map Circle Programme for 2018 ........................30 ‘Maps and Plans’ department (see the full report on BOOKS, PRINTS, MAPS & ATLASSES p.27). International news More festivities are being planned to celebrate our 20th UNESCO's 'Memory of the World International anniversary at the end of the year. The date has been Register’ - The Great Siege of Malta maps of 1565 ............. 32 chosen, mark it in your diary: 1 December 2018. The venue as well: we have booked the prestigious Plantin- PHIMCOS, the Philippine Map Collectors’ Society – Moretus Museum in Antwerp for the evening. This Update. ..................................................................................................................................... 32 old 16th century print shop (a UNESCO World Heritage folio. - Site since 2005) is of particular significance for lovers 1525 Ptolemy’s Geography re-united at Princeton of old maps: this is where Christophe Plantin printed University .............................................................................................................................33 the Theatrum Orbis Terrarum of Abraham Ortelius. The museum holds a number of artifacts from that period... The programme of the evening is still under Auction calendar ........................................................................................................... 34 development: you will get all the information in the September issue of Maps in History as well as on our website www.bimcc.org. Cartographically yours, Cover : Francisco Rodrigues, Alor Island Blaeu, Atlas Maior, 1662 : 592 maps, 11 volumes in In: Livro de Francisco Rodrigues, 1513-1515, fl. 43 (Bibliothèque de l’Assemblée nationale, Paris) Rue aux Laines 19/2 · 1000 Brussels Jean-Louis Renteux Vice-President & Editor [email protected] · +32 (0) 2 544 10 55 [email protected] www.arenbergauctions.com MAY 2018 – MAPS IN HISTORY NO 61 MAY 2018 – MAPS IN HISTORY NO 61 4 EXHIBITIONS LOOKS AT BOOKS 5 Companions in Geography: Cosmography at the East-West Collaboration in the Louvre Abu Dhabi museum Mapping of Qing China (c. 1685-1735) by Mario Cams Series: East and West, Volume: 1 Leiden, Brill, 2017 The Abu Dhabi branch, although 280 pages with colour and black and white illustrations, hard cover, 24 x 16 cm clearly targeting a more cosmopolitan ISBN 978-90-04-34535-5, hardback; also available as an e-book ISBN 978-90-04-34536-2, EUR and travelled public (many visitors 120.00 come from Asia), has a similar purpose: the main twelve galleries follow a chronological approach, The book is based on Mario Cams’ France as an Imperial envoy. When he from the ‘first villages’ to ‘a global Detail of the planisphere by Visconte PhD thesis (which was discussed in returned he brought not only practical stage’, and present masterpieces Maggiolo (Genoa, 1531). the last issue of MiH, p. 11). As such instruments for use in surveying but from different cultures, highlighting it starts as one might expect with an also the latest maps of Asia which seem the parallel evolution of world There is also a nice series of ancient explanation of the approach to, and to have informed the Qing mapping civilisations. Arabian astrolabes, as well as a 15th- structure of, the work. ‘Companions in project decades later. One of the maps century map of the world from Iraq, to Geography’ refers to a letter written by was based on the De Fer projection Among these galleries, one is devoted illustrate the importance of the Middle a French Jesuit priest in 1712 to a fellow which was used for the project. to ‘Cosmography’. It illustrates, in East in the development of navigation mapmaker in China, and sets the A huge dome (160 metres in diameter, particular with maps and globes, techniques. scene which will analyse and describe designed by architect Jean Nouvel) how various civilisations first came the network of people of various shades the museum; it is, in itself, an into contact. The central item of The artifacts representative of the trades, cultures and nationalities who evocation of Cosmology! this room is a terrestrial globe by first contacts between civilisations, were part of the ‘Overview Maps of Vincenzo Coronelli (Venice, 1697), on comprise three large folding screens Imperial Territories’ project that is ‘From one Louvre to another’ is the loan from the Bibliothèque nationale depicting the arrival of Portuguese at this book’s core. Dr Cams pursues theme of the first exhibition taking de France; it is also used in a digital merchants in Japan (ca 1625). his enquiries tracing the travel and place at the newly inaugurated branch display depicting the first great interchange of material objects, among of Paris’s Le Louvre in the Emirates. expeditions: Ibn Majid and the Arabian The limited number of maps on display them instruments and maps. The great It tells how, in 1793, the young French navigators; expeditions of the Chinese in this restricted space include two ‘Qing mapping project’ was supported Republic decided to preserve, rather Admiral Zheng He; Bartolomeu Dias’ remarkable portolan charts: one of by a number of different institutions: quadrant, first designed by Jean than destroy, the arts collection explorations of the African coasts; the Indian Ocean by João Teixeira the Académie Royale des Sciences in Picard. All three workshops made accumulated by the former kings and Vasco da Gama’s expedition towards Albernaz (Portugal, 1649); and the Paris (in turn supported by Louis XIV – quadrants; one well-known name to present them to the public in the India, and arrival of Columbus in spectacular planisphere by Visconte this meant that funding was available); using them was Giovanni Domenico prestigious setting of the Louvre royal America. Maggiolo (Genoa, 1531) which was on the Jesuits, who saw cartography Cassini. castle in Paris. Since then the Louvre sale at Maastricht TEFAF last year for and cartographic skills – geodesy, museum has considerably evolved the equally spectacular price of ten mathematics, instrument-making – as Following the Qing conquest of the with, in particular, the controversial million Euros (see MiH58, p. 34)! a means of furthering their influence Chinese provinces in the mid-17th creation of the glass pyramid at the in China; the Qing Imperial Workshops century, Jesuit missionaries quickly Fig. 1. Quadrant by Butterfield, radius centre of its forecourt in 1989. In The Louvre Abu Dhabi, and its and the Qing court itself. Beijing, gained access to the Qing court, 58cm, similar to the one given to the 2012 a first avatar of the Louvre was Cosmography gallery, are well worth a Paris and St. Petersburg all played key providing skills in astronomy and emperor