A blog about antique map collecting.

A review by Sam Coale of  “The Forth Part of the World”, a “sumptuous, lavishly illustrated history of map-making and the visions of the world it incarnated,” by Toby Lester.

It is a fascinating, tortuously dogged (on the part of scribes and friars), meticulously detailed tale of how various maps came to be amid the humanist stirrings of Florence, the early Portuguese explorations of Africa, and all that “fed into a collective quest for knowledge, power, and wealth the likes of which had never before been seen. That quest was at once mystical, rapacious, evangelical, self-centered, grand, inspiring, and often delusional.”

Lester’s account, according to Coale, “sparkles with wit and tidbits.”  For instance:

The West became the “occident,” which suggests falling and dying, like the sun. “Oriens” in Latin means rising; hence the Orient, the East, Christ’s star, and why we use “orient” to describe finding our bearings.”

It looks like it is well worth a look.

An antique map of the world by cartographer Matteo Ricci from 1602 that shows China at the center of the world is on display thru April 10th, 2010, at the Library of Congress in the United States.

The map symbolizes the first connection between Eastern and Western thinking and commerce, and gained the nickname the “Impossible Black Tulip of Cartography”. It also identifies Florida as “the Land of Flowers”.

More information on the Ricci map can be found in a news release from the Library of Congress.

An interesting article from Spacing Atlantic by Matt Neville describing famous cartographer Joseph Frederick Wallet DesBarres and his roles in Nova Scotia.

As the article notes, after arriving in North America in 1756:

DesBarres was soon mapping the St. Lawrence River and working on his charts in Halifax during the winter months while teaching mathematics, astronomy, and surveying to a young James Cook.

In 1760, DesBarres began mapping the Halifax Harbour in preparation for the construction of fortifications and dockyards. Over the next decade he would also complete detailed hydrological surveys of the coast. The Atlantic Neptune, a large collection of charts and views of the east coast of North America was the result of his work, first published in 1777, and has been his lasting legacy.

This is the 3rd installment of a series on explorations through maps of the Halifax region by Neville called [Re]Presenting Halifax:

The overall objective is to re-present the city within the historical and contemporary socio-political, spatial, and ecological dimensions and challenges in a manner that helps to reveal opportunities and contribute to a wider discussion on current conflicts, debates and developments.

The first article is called, “Exploring Halifax Through Mapping“, and the second is entitled, “Against The Grain“.

Here are two handy tools that might help pinpoint the possible age of your antique map or globe.

The first, How Old is Your Globe? from Replogle Globes is a chart where you find the former place name instead of the new name, you can then find the corresponding age.

The second is a PDF from CRAM: How Old Is My Map Or Globe.

A nice little overview of the work of the modern cartographer and cartography in the UK’s Independent can be read here.

“You have to create symbols that work with each other. There’s a hierarchy of information for each map and you have to make sure the important things stand out,” he adds. This involves communicating well with clients.

After 5 years of testing the 15th Century Vinland Map of America, a Danish expert has declared the map to be genuine.

Controversy has swirled around the map since it came to light in the 1950s, many scholars suspecting it was a hoax meant to prove that Vikings were the first Europeans to land in North America — a claim confirmed by a 1960 archaeological find.

Rene Larsen, rector of the School of Conservation under the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, said his team carried out studies of the ink, writing, wormholes and parchment of the map, which is housed at Yale University in the United States. Among the team’s conclusions:

…claims the ink was too recent because it contained a substance called anatase titanium dioxide could be rejected because medieval maps have been found with the same substance, which probably came from sand used to dry wet ink.

Read the full article here.