Geographic and Cartographic Encounters Between the Islamic World and Europe, C
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Mapping Mediterranean Geographies: Geographic and Cartographic Encounters between the Islamic World and Europe, c. 1100-1600 by Jeremy Francis Ledger A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (History) in the University of Michigan 2016 Doctoral Committee: Associate Professor Diane Owen Hughes, Chair Professor Michael Bonner Associate Professor Hussein Fancy Professor Karla Mallette Professor Emilie Savage-Smith, University of Oxford © 2016 Jeremy Francis Ledger All Rights Reserved To my parents ii Acknowledgements It is with a deep sense of gratitude and appreciation that I recall the many people who generously shared their time, knowledge, and friendship during this dissertation’s composition. First, my greatest thanks go to my advisor, Diane Owen Hughes, who has guided, supported, and taught me throughout my graduate studies at Michigan. Her intellectual brilliance and breadth of knowledge has shaped this dissertation and my own thinking in so many ways. I could not have asked for a better mentor. I also want to give a special thanks to my dissertation committee. I learned much from long discussions with Michael Bonner, who shares my enthusiasm for the history of medieval and early modern geography and cartography. His advice on sources to consult and paths to follow has been instrumental in the completion of this project. I thank Hussein Fancy, for stimulating conversations and for always pushing me to think in new ways. I have further benefitted from my other committee members, Emilie Savage-Smith and Karla Mallette. Their careful reading and thoughtful critiques have been invaluable to me. At Michigan, the Department of History, the Medieval and Early Modern Studies Program, the Eisenberg Institute, and the Rackham Graduate School have provided an intellectual home as well as funding for my research and writing. I also wish to extend my sincere thanks to the foundations and granting organizations that funded my research trips to archives and libraries across the Mediterranean, in Spain, Morocco, Tunisia, Italy, and Turkey. I will be forever grateful to the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Council of American Overseas Research Centers, American Institute for Maghrib Studies, the Institute of International iii Education Fulbright Program. In Morocco, Jim Miller and the staffs at Moroccan-American Commission for Educational and Cultural Exchange and the Tangier American Legation Institute for Moroccan Studies gave me a warm welcome and helpful advice that greatly aided my first forays into the libraries and archives there. In Tunis, thanks to Laryssa Chomiak and the Centre d’Études Maghrébines for providing a home base for my research. Sadok Boubaker at the Université de Tunis generously oriented me to the research libraries and institutes in Tunis. At the Arxiu de la Corona d’Aragó in Barcelona, I especially want to thank Ramon Pujades for his kindness and long discussions about the history of portolan charts. He and his work have been crucial for much of this dissertation. To Mònica Rius Piniés at the Universitat de Barcelona and Roser Salicrú i Lluch at the Institución Miláy Fontanals, thank you for your advice and for wonderful suggestions about local archival sources. In Istanbul, Ece Irmak and the all of the staff at the Naval Museum – Berfu Demir, Nalan Yakarcelik, Derya Osman Taneri, Nurettin Gul, Hanife Ozturk, and Canan Cavrar – made me feel welcome and happily shared their tea and pastries with me. Zafer Aksoy’s assistance at Topkapı Sarayı Palace Archive was invaluable. I have benefitted from discussions, advice, and instruction from so many others while working on this project. Carla Rahn Phillips introduced me to Spanish paleography at a Newberry seminar. I also wish to thank Constantin Fasolt and Zach Schiffman, intrepid leaders of a Newberry dissertation seminar, for their critiques and long discussions about my research project. The 2014 conference on ‘Cartography between Europe and the Islamic World’ at Queen Mary University of London helped me to reformulate this dissertation in new ways, and I thank the organizers, Alfred Hiatt, Jerry Brotton, and Yossi Rapoport, as well as all of the participants. Conversations there with Emilie Savage-Smith, Emmanuelle Vagnon, Jean-Charles Ducène, Piero Falchetta, Tony Campbell, and Stefan Schröder were especially edifying. In addition to my iv dissertation committee at Michigan many other faculty taught and encouraged me over the years. Paolo Squatriti and Betsy Sears, in particular, have been excellent mentors and teachers. I am also grateful to Tom Green, Alison Cornish, Juan Cole, George Steinmetz, Julia Hell, David Hancock, Gottfried Hagen, Rudi Lindner, Paul Johnson, and Julie Skurski. The Department of History at Michigan has also been wonderful to me, especially Kathleen King, Lorna Altstetter, Diana Denney, Terre Fisher, and all the other staff members. At the Hatcher Graduate Library, Evyn Kropf has taught me much about premodern Islamic manuscripts and the art of studying handmade paper. Finally, and far deeper in the past, I owe an enormous thank you to Katy Fleming at New York University, who introduced me to Mediterranean history and helped me find my way to graduate school at Michigan, for which I will be forever grateful. Thank you to all of the graduate students and friends who have provided feedback on this project and made graduate school fun: Noah Blan, Jon Far, Yanay Israeli, Liz Kamali, Kate Waggoner Karchner, You-Sun Chung, and many others. Ben Graham has been a great friend and cohort mate since my first days in Ann Arbor and has read and reread countless versions of my dissertation chapters and fellowship applications. I also want to thank him for the many excellent meals that he cooked for me over the years. Kate Wright has also been a great friend since the early days, too. To my history cohort fellows, Bertrand Metton, Anthony Ross, and David Schlitt, it was a pleasure to be in the history program with you. Thanks also to the rest of my friends here for all the fun times, for listening and offering advice, and, of course, for all of the bike rides and soccer: Leslie Hempson, David Spreen, Guy Willoughby, Paolo Maranzana, Greg Tucker, Emma Thomas, Hannah McMurray, and many others. My parents, Warren and Carol, have supported me unconditionally and I can never thank them enough for all they have done for me. My brother, Jason, saved me from the brink of laptop v disasters countless times. I also thank my sister-in-law Nina and my nieces Emily and Lauren. To my family, thank you. None of this would have been possible without them. vi Table of Contents Dedication ....................................................................................................................................... ii Acknowledgements ........................................................................................................................ iii List of Figures .............................................................................................................................. viii List of Tables ................................................................................................................................. ix List of Abbreviations ...................................................................................................................... x Note on Transcription .................................................................................................................... xi Abstract ......................................................................................................................................... xii Introduction ..................................................................................................................................... 1 Chapter 1: A Geography of Legitimacy........................................................................................ 29 Chapter 2: Writing the World from Palermo ............................................................................... 83 Chapter 3: Lands of Islam, Lands of the Rūm ............................................................................ 125 Chapter 4: Geographies of Conquest: A Maghribī Chart of the Western Mediterranean .......... 176 Chapter 5: Translating al-Zuhrī’s Book of Geography in Salamanca ......................................... 238 Chapter 6: Sacred Geographies: The Atlases and World Map of ‘Alī al-Sharafī ....................... 272 Conclusion .................................................................................................................................. 325 Appendix ..................................................................................................................................... 337 Bibliography ............................................................................................................................... 355 vii List of Figures Figure 1. Map of southern Italy c. 1112........................................................................................ 33 Figure 2. Zīrid-ruled Ifrīqiya......................................................................................................... 37 Figure 3. Map of Roger’s Kingdom, ca. 1154 .............................................................................. 42 Figure 4. The five zone world map of Macrobius, c. 1000 ........................................................... 88 Figure 5. Map of the Maghrib in Bodleian Library