Posts from — April 2008

A Great Lakes map, a re-strike originally made by the Jesuit priest Francesco Bressani in 1657 and recreated around 1900, sold for $5,040 in an online auction.

Only two examples of the original map survive. The original map was printed on two sheets and covered the St. Lawrence River in addition to the Great Lakes; the 1900 copy consists of only the left (or western) sheet.

Bressani, who served in Quebec in the 1640s, was captured and tortured by the Iroquois, then survived and returned to Italy, where he created the map. He lost three fingers on his right hand during his captivity and torture, but compiled the map drawing based on Jesuit sources and likely, with influence of another mapmaker of the time, Nicolas Sanson.

It is a highly accurate map of the eastern Great Lakes and Ottowa River regions. In it, Georgian Bay is described in great detail. Lake Erie is placed at a higher latitude than on the map of the same region created by Sanson. Father Bressani embellished his work with several drawings (remarkable considering his missing fingers); these included depictions of the Indians, one showing a converted family praying.

Read the press release about the Great Lakes map as well as other antique maps sold at the auction.

[tags]antique maps, antique map auctions, famous cartographers[/tags]

The newly redesigned Norman B. Leventhal Map Center at the Boston Public Library website is ready for viewing.

Some of the changes on the new site include:

1. The website’s Zoomify feature in View Collection has been upgraded and improved.
2. You can now access our Teacher Resources by creating a search across multiple portals of educational levels, topics, ideas and skills.
3. Two new Maps in the News current events features with articles detailing Bolivia and New Orleans are now available with their related Teacher Resources.
4. An engaging, educational, and interactive Virtual Tour for our current exhibit Boston & Beyond has been uploaded to the site with its related Teacher Resources. You are now able to download PDF’s of maps that are out of copyright (pre-1923) for insertion into reports or power point presentations.
5. In May, you will be able to buy a map reproductions on line.

View the updated Norman B. Leventhal Map Center website. 

Via: MapHist

[tags]Norman B. Leventhal Map Center, Boston Public Library, antique maps, online map collections[/tags]

A great opportunity to see some antique maps of the Ukraine in New York City, The Mapping of Ukraine: European Cartography and Maps of Early Modern Ukraine, 1550-1799, opens today at he Ukrainian Museum of New York City.

The Mapping of Ukraine: European Cartography and Maps of Early Modern Ukraine, 1550-1799, includes 42 original maps published by European mapmakers over a 250-year period. A majority of the maps in the exhibition are from the Museum’s Marie Halun Bloch Collection, which consists of 52 maps bequeathed to the Museum by the Ukrainian American writer of children’s books upon her death in 1998.

Dr. Bohdan Kordan, Professor of International Relations and Chair of the Department of Political Studies, St. Thomas More College, University of Saskatchewan, and curator of the exhibition, will be on hand for its opening.

The exhibit runs until October 3rd, 2008.

[tags]maps of the Ukraine, Ukraine Museum, map exhibitions, antique maps[/tags]

A new 30 minute DVD from ODTMaps about Arno Peters’ cartography will be available for sale on April 21, 2008. The documentary, Arno Peters: Radical Map, Remarkable Man, traces the controversy and conflict the Peters World Map generated and “challenges viewers to think critically about media messages of all kinds.”

Trailer: Arno Peters: Radical Map, Remarkable Man 

Read the Press Release.

[tags]Peters world map, famous cartographers, Peters DVD[/tags]

I found it interesting to recently read about how it is still necessary to map some areas of the world on foot, envoking the exploratory nature of cartography of old.

While most maps today are produced from satellite images, a project by UK-based charity The Rainforest Foundation is using handheld GPS units to map parts of the Democratic Republic of Congo where thick forest and conflict have prevented effective mapping.

In one of the sectors of the territory that the groups are mapping at the moment, there are something like 190 villages but on the official map there are about 30,” Cath Long of the Rainforest Foundation which is organising the project told the BBC’s Network Africa.

Read the full story here.

[tags]Congo maps, mapping, mapping the Congo[/tags]

Old maps, including maps of London from 1840, spotted by a volunteer in a stock room at an Oxfam shop in England, went for £2,000 (approx. $4,000USD) at a charity auction the other day.

The star lot was a plan of London and its environs dating from 1840, showing the boundaries of the cities of London and Westminster, the metropolitan borough and parishes and distances of principal roads from the general post office.

The document was expected to fetch up to £300 but sold for £1,200.

Read the full story here.

[tags]Oxfam Maps, map auctions, London maps[/tags]