MAPS IN JANUARY 2016 Newsletter No HISTORY 54 Mapping the Maps and diplomacy Ottoman Empire Portolan controversy (continued) ISSN 1379-3306 www.bimcc.org 2 SPONSORS Paulus Swaen Internet Map Auctions March - May - September - November Maps, Globes, Views, Atlases, Prints SCANNING - GEOREFERENCING Catalogue on: AND DIGITISING OF OLD MAPS www.swaen.com [email protected] Tel: +1 727 687 32 98 IJzerweglaan 48 I 9050 Gent Belgium [email protected] I www.aquaterra.be T +32 (0)9 230 55 15 I F +32 (0)9 230 21 10 Antique Maps, Plans and Charts of all areas of Britain and the World Henri Godts Antique maps, plans, charts and atlases of all areas of Britain and the world Avenue Louise 230/6 bought and sold. 1050 Brussels +44 (0)1225 300573 [email protected] / WWW.JPMAPS.CO.UK Tel: +32 (0)2 647 85 48 Much of our stock is also available on Fax: +32 (0)2 640 73 32 our website. Cartographic reference books are also for sale. Come and visit Dealer and Auctioneer of rare books, our gallery to meet the experts and mansuscripts, maps and atlases browse our extensive stock. Info from: [email protected] 5 Margarets Buildings Catalogue on: www.godts.com Bath, BA1 2LP Tel: +44(0)1225300573 www.jpmaps.co.uk JANUARY 2016 – MAPS IN HISTORY NO 54 EDITORIAL 3 Contents Intro Looks at books Dear Map Friends, The world’s masterpieces explored and explained .................4 You already noticed: the magazine which you have in Collecting Old Maps .................................................................................................... 6 your hands is different! Indeed, we begin the new year with a deeply rejuvenated History and Cartography Maps in History. David Raes, who is a professional graphic designer running his own business (www.mindseye.be), How old are portolan charts really? ....................................................... 8 offered his benevolent support in response to my cry for The Modern Atlas as Diplomatic Gift .................................................... 12 e e help in issue No 50 (September 2014). Together with Paul La cartographie des traités (XV – XX siècles) ........................ 16 De Candt, who did the lay-out for issues No 52 and 53, we The rectification of the northern border of France have constituted a team and developed a new editorial in 1779, in the field, in La Flamengrie ....................................................18 approach; our President, Caroline De Candt, and our webmaster, Pierre Parmentier, also took an active part Interview in the rejuvenation process. In addition, we now have a full colour magazine, since our President managed to How I Got Into Cartography: Joost Depuydt................................ 24 find a print shop which can do it for an affordable price. We do hope that you like the resulting new lay-out and Brussels Map Circle news looks of our publication ... and that you appreciate the progress made since Wulf Bodenstein and I assembled Mapping the Ottoman Empire ..................................................................... 26 Newsletter No 19 by hand in the local photo-copy shop! Brussels Map Circle Programme for 2016 ......................................30 The Ottoman Empire is again on the cover, to highlight News and calendar the success of our yearly Conference in December (see the full report on page XX). Other topics in this issue are related to the close links between maps and diploma- International news .................................................................................................... 34 cy. Prof. Toshiyuki Shimazu first tells us the story of a Events calendar ............................................................................................................... 38 copy of the famous atlas of Europe made in Belgium by Exhibition calendar ...................................................................................................40 Philippe Vandermaelen which ended up in Japan as a dip- Auction calendar ............................................................................................................ 41 lomatic gift in the 1840s (p. YY). Then Caroline De Candt reports on the yearly conference of the Comité français de cartographie devoted to the cartography of treaties, where different aspects of the role of maps in diplomatic relations were presented, as well as their evolution from the 15th to the 20th centuries (p. ZZ). I contributed to this most interesting conference with a presentation on the history of the northern boundary of France, which I turned into an article for this issue of Maps in History (p. WW). Last but not least, the controversy on the origin of portolan charts continues, as Roel Nicolai responds, quite strongly, to the criticisms of Joaquim Gaspar and Tony Campbell on his thesis in our last issue (p. VV); this promises interesting debates at the workshop scheduled on this subject (in June, in Lisbon). Wishing you a happy cartographic year, Jean-Louis Renteux Vice-President & Editor [email protected] Cover: Baghdad, Atlas, Topkapı Palace Museum Library, B. 339, 4v-5r, 17th century JANUARY 2016 – MAPS IN HISTORY NO 54 4 LOOKS AT BOOKS The world’s masterpieces explored and explained by Jerry Brotton London, Dorling Kindersley 2014, 256 pages, most with illustrations – maps, map details, portraits of mapmakers – hard cover, 310 x 260 mm, GBP 20, ISBN 978-1-4654-2463-1 If you ever thought you would be to others. I also found it fascinating to content with merely glancing at a map, see the way Brotton’s technique serves this book will force a change of mind. equally for the most up-to-date maps. Jerry Brotton gives his readers a dif- ferent take on ‘A History Of The World As an example of the format we will In Twelve Maps’; the twelve have now take the New Map of France by César- become over sixty, and we are invited François Cassini de Thury, from the to look at them in great detail. New Directions and Beliefs section. The map is allotted four pages (some The book begins with a preface and only get two). The first two pages show introduction. It is then divided into the title and details – date, produc- six sections: Classical Maps - 1500 tion technique, size, and where it now BCE – 1300 CE, Discovery and Travel - resides – of the map, plus the map 1300 – 1570, New Directions and Beliefs itself. In addition, Brotton gives us - 1570 – 1750, Thematic Maps - 1750 – the size of the map, comparing it in 1900, and Modern Mapping - 1900 to this case to a person’s hand (where he explanation and drawing of triangula- the present. In each section the writer presents a large map this would be a tion, the technique used by Cassini to takes the maps he deems to be the most person’s height). We have some text make the map. significant for the period and theme, introducing the map and a box with a and for each allots two or four pages of An interesting map in the Discovery very visual analysis and explanation. In and Travel section is the Aztec Map of time the reader is led from the Bedolina The book is a visual Tenochtitlan, 1642, ink on paper, author Petroglyph (c. 1500 BCE, Italy) to the delight, and every page unknown, which resides in the Bodleian Google Earth digital map (2014, global), teaches the reader how Library, in Oxford, UK. The largest city in theme from ‘The Map of the Tracks of in the pre-Columbian Americas, it was Yu’ to the map of the World Ocean Floor, to look at the maps. where Mexico City lies today. It is about and we are forced to look at and appre- two hands high and one and a half wide. ciate content, materials, production portrait of Cassini and a short biog- The introduction describes the map – context, among many other aspects. raphy. The following two pages gives see illustration – with its blue border, us a Visual Tour. Brotton chooses six signifying the lake on which the city Brotton’s trump card is that he has parts of the map, numbering them on is built, and the blue cross signifying found a format that can be applied to a reduced version of the actual map so the city’s canals. The cross divides the all the maps he wishes to show us. This that we can see where they fit in, and city into its four main districts, and the format provides a pedagogical and en- blows each section up to a size where city’s founding fathers sit within the tertaining introduction to some maps the reader/viewer can comfortably areas between the canals. At the centre we might not know, or might not know appreciate the content. He writes a is the eagle perched on a cactus, and very well. At the same time his ap- paragraph explaining each of these the blue border contains hieroglyphs proach to those maps we feel far more sections. In addition, on the same page which each represent a year, starting acquainted with does not jar; indeed we find a box entitled ‘On Technique’ with the foundation of the city in 1325. his is perhaps a very useful lesson in (Other maps have ‘In Context’, where At the bottom of the map is a separate how to introduce our favourite maps this is more appropriate) with an section, pulled out as part of the Visual JANUARY 2016 – MAPS IN HISTORY NO 54 LOOKS AT BOOKS 5 Nicola Boothby [email protected] Tour, showing the Aztecs defeating rival cities; the map as a whole is there- fore considered to be a celebration of the founding of the Aztec Empire. In addition to the introduction, we have the Visual Tour, showing a detail and explanation of the eagle, cactus and the Aztec god Huitzilopochtli’s symbol, the same for Tenoch, Aztec leader and one of the city’s founders, and a detail and explanation of the bottom section, as already described. There is also an ‘In Context’ box, explaining how the Mesoamerican tradition of mapmaking is characterised by the use of hiero- glyphs to depict events and places.