History of Cartography Garrett Lectures and Special Collections Exhibit

The Fort Worth Star-Telegram at dfw.com has an announcement regarding the Fifth Biennial Virginia Garrett Lectures on the History of Cartography: “Mapping the Sacred” this coming Friday, October 6th, 2006 to be held at the University of Texas at Arlington Central Library.

The day will feature presentations by cartographic scholars from the United States, England, Israel and Lebanon, in addition to the opening of the Special Collections exhibit “Mapping the Sacred: Belief and Religion in the History of Cartography,” and will be followed on Saturday by the fall meeting of the Texas Map Society.

The lectures will focus on how religions of the world used maps to depict sacred ideas and, at times, to keep track of worldly territories. Many of the world’s major religions will be represented in the lectures, including Judaism, Islam, Christianity, Mormonism, and Native American.

The article notes that the cartouche pictured above from from Dutch engraver and map seller Frederick de Wit’s map of America, Novißima et Accuratißima Septentrionalis ac Meridionalis Americae, published in Amsterdam in 1680, illustrates a finely rendered baroque cartouche that uses a winged angel and an allegorical figure of a beautiful woman clothed in swirling drapery, carrying a small cross to represent christianity, while less appealing allegorical figures represent America (at left, with a feather headdress) and heresy or false religion (the figure at right, with demonlike claws on feet and hands.)

The public is welcome at all events.

[tags]Garrett Lectures, History of Cartography, Cartouches, Antique Maps, Maps and Religion[/tags]