Karen C. Pinto
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- January 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780226126968
- eISBN:
- 9780226127019
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226127019.001.0001
- Subject:
- Earth Sciences and Geography, Cartography
There are hundreds of cartographic images scattered throughout the medieval and early modern Arabic, Persian, and Turkish manuscript collections. The plethora of extant copies produced in a variety ...
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There are hundreds of cartographic images scattered throughout the medieval and early modern Arabic, Persian, and Turkish manuscript collections. The plethora of extant copies produced in a variety of locales across the Islamic world for eight centuries testifies to the enduring importance of these medieval Islamic cartographic visions. This book examines the rich corpus of Islamic maps to show that they can be read as iconographic representations of the way medieval Muslims perceived their world and that, just like text, they can be analyzed to reveal insights into the history of the period in which they were constructed. In these maps we see images informed by the work of other societies, by myth and religious belief, and by physical reality. This work disentangles the Islamic maps, traces their inception and evolution and reveals their picture cycles. It shows how these maps can be deconstructed to reveal the identities of their constructors, painters, and patrons. This book draws on complex debates in the realms of art history, history of science, and world history of cartography, as well as the philosophy of aesthetics, symbolic anthropology, and visual theory. It explores the applicability of newer and more innovative techniques for approaching the visual record of Islamic history. The author aims to bring Middle Eastern maps into the orbit of modern and postmodern theoretical paradigms. This is achieved through a series of analytical lenses that present alternate ways of viewing Islamic maps.Less
There are hundreds of cartographic images scattered throughout the medieval and early modern Arabic, Persian, and Turkish manuscript collections. The plethora of extant copies produced in a variety of locales across the Islamic world for eight centuries testifies to the enduring importance of these medieval Islamic cartographic visions. This book examines the rich corpus of Islamic maps to show that they can be read as iconographic representations of the way medieval Muslims perceived their world and that, just like text, they can be analyzed to reveal insights into the history of the period in which they were constructed. In these maps we see images informed by the work of other societies, by myth and religious belief, and by physical reality. This work disentangles the Islamic maps, traces their inception and evolution and reveals their picture cycles. It shows how these maps can be deconstructed to reveal the identities of their constructors, painters, and patrons. This book draws on complex debates in the realms of art history, history of science, and world history of cartography, as well as the philosophy of aesthetics, symbolic anthropology, and visual theory. It explores the applicability of newer and more innovative techniques for approaching the visual record of Islamic history. The author aims to bring Middle Eastern maps into the orbit of modern and postmodern theoretical paradigms. This is achieved through a series of analytical lenses that present alternate ways of viewing Islamic maps.
Benjamin B. Olshin
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- January 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780226149820
- eISBN:
- 9780226149967
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226149967.001.0001
- Subject:
- Earth Sciences and Geography, Cartography
This book, The Mysteries of the “Marco Polo” Maps, introduces the reader to a very curious collection of little-known maps relating to the voyages of Marco Polo. As far as history tells us, Marco ...
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This book, The Mysteries of the “Marco Polo” Maps, introduces the reader to a very curious collection of little-known maps relating to the voyages of Marco Polo. As far as history tells us, Marco Polo himself never drew any maps recording his travels to the east. Maps such as the 1375 Catalan Atlas use information from the famous Polo narrative in the depiction of Asia, but it does not seem that this or other such cartographic works were based on works that Marco Polo might have brought back. Fra Mauro’s fifteenth-century world map uses Marco Polo’s toponyms, and the Venetian historian, diplomat, geographer, and writer Giovanni Battista Ramusio (1485-1557) claimed that this work was a copy of one brought back from China by Marco Polo, but gave no evidence for his claim. In this new book, however, the reader can explore maps that may suggest new leads in the case—with a detailed look at these obscure but fascinating materials, some fourteen maps and related documents currently held in a private collection (with one at the Library of Congress). The text takes the reader of a broad adventure, with encounters in many areas of knowledge—from early exploration in Asia to medieval Italian history, and from tales of the remote reaches of the northern Pacific Ocean to ancient Chinese legends. This is an exciting exploration of knowledge, delving into old manuscripts and deciphering texts to find clues as to the origin of these mysterious maps.Less
This book, The Mysteries of the “Marco Polo” Maps, introduces the reader to a very curious collection of little-known maps relating to the voyages of Marco Polo. As far as history tells us, Marco Polo himself never drew any maps recording his travels to the east. Maps such as the 1375 Catalan Atlas use information from the famous Polo narrative in the depiction of Asia, but it does not seem that this or other such cartographic works were based on works that Marco Polo might have brought back. Fra Mauro’s fifteenth-century world map uses Marco Polo’s toponyms, and the Venetian historian, diplomat, geographer, and writer Giovanni Battista Ramusio (1485-1557) claimed that this work was a copy of one brought back from China by Marco Polo, but gave no evidence for his claim. In this new book, however, the reader can explore maps that may suggest new leads in the case—with a detailed look at these obscure but fascinating materials, some fourteen maps and related documents currently held in a private collection (with one at the Library of Congress). The text takes the reader of a broad adventure, with encounters in many areas of knowledge—from early exploration in Asia to medieval Italian history, and from tales of the remote reaches of the northern Pacific Ocean to ancient Chinese legends. This is an exciting exploration of knowledge, delving into old manuscripts and deciphering texts to find clues as to the origin of these mysterious maps.
Jessica Maier
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780226127637
- eISBN:
- 9780226127774
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226127774.001.0001
- Subject:
- Earth Sciences and Geography, Cartography
This book recounts the history of a genre, the city portrait, through imagery of Rome. Among the most popular categories of early modern print culture, the city portrait was also one of the most ...
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This book recounts the history of a genre, the city portrait, through imagery of Rome. Among the most popular categories of early modern print culture, the city portrait was also one of the most varied, encompassing maps, bird’s-eye views, and other forms of urban representation. Through an exploration of seminal works dating from the fifteenth to the eighteenth centuries, this book interweaves the story of this genre with that of Rome itself, addressing the key figures and specific contexts that shaped each image. Scholars, artists, architects, and engineers who shared a fascination with Rome’s ruins were spurred to develop new graphic modes for depicting the city. The resulting maps delicately balanced measured and pictorial forms of representation, past and present, realism and idealism. Portraits of Rome became canvases for documenting the rapid-fire urban changes initiated by a series of Renaissance and Baroque popes, for projecting ideas about the city’s current and future state, and for romanticizing, aggrandizing, or marginalizing its tangible signs of antiquity—or, for that matter, modernity.Less
This book recounts the history of a genre, the city portrait, through imagery of Rome. Among the most popular categories of early modern print culture, the city portrait was also one of the most varied, encompassing maps, bird’s-eye views, and other forms of urban representation. Through an exploration of seminal works dating from the fifteenth to the eighteenth centuries, this book interweaves the story of this genre with that of Rome itself, addressing the key figures and specific contexts that shaped each image. Scholars, artists, architects, and engineers who shared a fascination with Rome’s ruins were spurred to develop new graphic modes for depicting the city. The resulting maps delicately balanced measured and pictorial forms of representation, past and present, realism and idealism. Portraits of Rome became canvases for documenting the rapid-fire urban changes initiated by a series of Renaissance and Baroque popes, for projecting ideas about the city’s current and future state, and for romanticizing, aggrandizing, or marginalizing its tangible signs of antiquity—or, for that matter, modernity.
