Genevieve Carlton
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780226255316
- eISBN:
- 9780226255453
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226255453.003.0002
- Subject:
- Earth Sciences and Geography, Cultural and Historical Geography
This chapter examines the connection between changes in cartographic production and consumption in the first decades of printing. Through an analysis of the inventory made in 1528 of Europe’s first ...
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This chapter examines the connection between changes in cartographic production and consumption in the first decades of printing. Through an analysis of the inventory made in 1528 of Europe’s first shop to sell cartographic prints, the chapter reconstructs the market for maps in sixteenth-century Italy. This examination, in concert with placing maps in the broader economic context of similar goods, including books and art prints, demonstrates the affordability of maps to a much wider class of consumer. As the inventory analysis shows, maps were within the financial reach of even unskilled laborers.Less
This chapter examines the connection between changes in cartographic production and consumption in the first decades of printing. Through an analysis of the inventory made in 1528 of Europe’s first shop to sell cartographic prints, the chapter reconstructs the market for maps in sixteenth-century Italy. This examination, in concert with placing maps in the broader economic context of similar goods, including books and art prints, demonstrates the affordability of maps to a much wider class of consumer. As the inventory analysis shows, maps were within the financial reach of even unskilled laborers.
Jessica Maier
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780226127637
- eISBN:
- 9780226127774
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226127774.003.0002
- Subject:
- Earth Sciences and Geography, Cartography
The late fifteenth century saw the emergence of two paradigms: Leon Battista Alberti’s Descriptio urbis Romae, a treatise describing the scholar’s method for making a geometric plan of Rome, and ...
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The late fifteenth century saw the emergence of two paradigms: Leon Battista Alberti’s Descriptio urbis Romae, a treatise describing the scholar’s method for making a geometric plan of Rome, and Francesco Rosselli’s panoramic view of the city. Situating both works relative to late medieval portrayals, this chapter shows how they established the cartographic and pictorial approaches that came to dominate city imagery. Alberti’s Descriptio stemmed from the stimulating atmosphere of mid-fifteenth-century Rome, particularly the intellectual circle of the curia. His friends included noted humanists Flavio Biondo and Poggio Bracciolini, and Alberti’s project fits well with their investigations of the city’s history and topography. Rosselli’s city view, by contrast, was the work of a professional printmaker—one of the first to specialize in realistic city portraits. His work, unlike Alberti’s, was a popular success that inspired a plethora of imitations. But Alberti’s map and principles had an equally significant influence in the realm of urban mapping. For all their differences, both works expressed Rome’s burgeoning renewal, or renovatio, and both were united by a commitment to measurement and exactitude that set them apart from all that had come before, while providing a foundation for all that came after.Less
The late fifteenth century saw the emergence of two paradigms: Leon Battista Alberti’s Descriptio urbis Romae, a treatise describing the scholar’s method for making a geometric plan of Rome, and Francesco Rosselli’s panoramic view of the city. Situating both works relative to late medieval portrayals, this chapter shows how they established the cartographic and pictorial approaches that came to dominate city imagery. Alberti’s Descriptio stemmed from the stimulating atmosphere of mid-fifteenth-century Rome, particularly the intellectual circle of the curia. His friends included noted humanists Flavio Biondo and Poggio Bracciolini, and Alberti’s project fits well with their investigations of the city’s history and topography. Rosselli’s city view, by contrast, was the work of a professional printmaker—one of the first to specialize in realistic city portraits. His work, unlike Alberti’s, was a popular success that inspired a plethora of imitations. But Alberti’s map and principles had an equally significant influence in the realm of urban mapping. For all their differences, both works expressed Rome’s burgeoning renewal, or renovatio, and both were united by a commitment to measurement and exactitude that set them apart from all that had come before, while providing a foundation for all that came after.
