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The Journal of Map and Geography Libraries announces the publication of a special issue devoted to the topic of provenance, entitled That Map Belonged to Somebody: The Importance of Provenance to Map Librarians. The editors anticipate that this issue will be of interest to the staff and friends of the Geography and Map Division, Library of Congress, as the final article provides a history of the Geography and Map Division’s Summer Project programme, which spanned the last half of the twentieth century. In addition, this issue includes a remembrance of Ed Redmond, while the other articles touch on the Library of Congress in one way or another. The introductory editorial and abstracts of all the articles are currently available online, as are the full articles for subscribers to the journal. The hard copy version of this issue will appear later this year.
Read more.

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From 14 July 2021, the website of the Tchiweka Documentation Association (ATD) is open to the public, putting online a large part of the archive that, since 2006, its Documentation Center has been managing, organizing and expanding.
Starting with the thousands of documents collected by Lúcio Lara “Tchiweka” (1929-2016), a well-known combatant of the Angolan liberation struggle and a prominent leader of the MPLA, the archive has increased its collection with other personal contributions and with the Project “Angola – Paths to Independence” (2010-2015).
This online archive has digitized several documents that may be of interest to map historians, including an 89-page manuscript letter by a Cuban combatant on map reading.
Link to the maps : https://www.tchiweka.org/pesquisa?keys=mapa&page=0.

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Contents

  • Pictures at an Exhibition
    • La Fábrica del Mundo (Luis A. Robles Macías)
  • Looks at books
    • Cartes des mers, by Katherine Parker and Barry Ruderman (Christiane De Craecker-Dussart)
    • Le Nord de la Renaissance by Pierre-Ange Salvadori (Luis A. Robles Macías)
  • History and Cartography
    • The Big Four (Marguerite Silvestre and Caroline De Candt)
    • An Itinerary Guide (Francis Herbert)
  • Miscellaneous
    • 38th IMCoS Symposium update
    • News from Malta

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To avoid missing your online conferences, a time converter can be useful! Here is a suitable site.

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The Directors of Imago Mundi Ltd are pleased to announce that the ninth Imago Mundi Prize has been awarded to Ingrid Houssaye Michienzi and Emmanuelle Vagnon for their article Commissioning and Use of Charts Made in Majorca c.1400: New Evidence from a Tuscan Merchant’s Archive (Imago Mundi 71:1 (2019): 22–33).
Dr Houssaye Michienzi and Dr Vagnon are researchers at the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS), respectively at the research units Orient & Méditerranée and Laboratoire de Médiévistique Occidentale de Paris.
The successful article sheds new and fascinating light on the demand for and circulation of portolan charts at the turn of the fifteenth century. Drs Houssaye Michienzi and Vagnon’s original research interrogates a resource little known to map historians, the archive of the merchant Francesco Datini, in Prato, Italy. This remarkable collection of business records and correspondence provides valuable insights into the commission, edition, distribution, reception and use of charts and maps prepared by Majorcan cartographers for Mediterranean elites at the dawn of the modern map trade. The archive includes a number of orders for charts from Majorca, one of the major chart-making centres in the Mediterranean in the Middle Ages. The letters give information on prices, the length of time it took to make a chart, and its destination. The archive also contains information on how the charts were packed and transported. From these sources, the authors conclude that the charts appear to have served not only to prepare for business trips, but also to embody the memory of these trips.
The article addresses a long-standing debate about the function and use of portolan charts—whether they are to be interpreted as scientific and navigational instruments or should be seen in broader cultural terms as reflections of the worldly interests of their wealthy and powerful patrons. Drs Houssaye Michienzi and Vagnon’s impressive research provides hitherto-elusive detailed and remarkably extensive evidence to show that the motives for possessing these charts were indeed complex. At the same time their work deepens our understanding of the networks within which the late-medieval map and chart trade operated, including the practices of chart making itself and its place in Mediterranean trade and politics more generally.
The Imago Mundi prize is offered every two years for the article judged to have made the most significant contribution to the discipline. This award covers volumes 70 (2018) and 71 (2019). Only full-length articles, which are automatically subjected to the (anonymous) external refereeing process before acceptance for publication, are eligible for the prize.
The prize is USD 1000.00 and qualifies the recipients for a J. B. Harley Travel Award to the forthcoming biennial International Conference on the History of Cartography, which will now be held in Bucharest in July 2022.
The Imago Mundi Prize is generously sponsored by the late Kenneth Nebenzahl and Mrs Jossy Nebenzahl.
Through the courtesy of our publishers, Routledge Journals (Taylor & Francis), this article is now available free of charge on their website: https://think.taylorandfrancis.com/journal-prize-ah-imago-mundi-prize-articles/.
Tony Campbell, Chairman, Imago Mundi Ltd

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A varied collection of Japanese maps, including maps of Japan, world maps, road maps, and different types of local maps, is now available on Manchester Digital Collection.
The launch of a new Japanese Maps Digital Collection, created in collaboration with the John Rylands University Library at the University of Manchester (UK), as part of my Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions Project (Travel in Tokugawa Period Japan (1603-1868): Identity, Nation and Social Transformation, 2019-2021), has been announced recently by Sonia Favi.
The Collection is part of the Manchester Digital Collections portal, and draws on cartographic materials from the University of Manchester Library Japanese Collection and the Maps Collection. It is an ongoing project, to which items are being progressively added.
The following blog post gives a general overview of the collection: https://rylandscollections.com/2021/03/08/japanese-maps-collection-launches-on-manchester-digital-collections/.

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On March 9th 2021, his 97th birthday, Dr Albert Ganado, Founder and President of the Malta Map Society, will step down as President to become Honorary Life Founder President.
At 97, he will be taking a well-deserved back seat. Nevertheless, he will continue to help the society in their activities. To keep a lasting commemoration of this event, a memento was presented to Dr Ganado by the Society in recognition of his sterling work in founding, nurturing and sustaining the Society throughout these last ten years.
His role as President of the Malta Map Society was taken over by Joseph Schirò who has been acting as the Society’s Honorary Secretary since its foundation. The other members of the Board are Ivan Fsadni Vice-President, Krystle Attard Trevisan, the new Honorary Secretary, Claude Micallef Attard Honorary Treasurer, Rod Lyon Press Officer, and members Ritienne Gauci, Bernadine Scicluna, William Soler and William Zammit.
The Malta Map Society was founded by Dr Ganado in November 2009. In ten years, the Society has managed to publish erudite in-depth studies of maps of Malta, many of which are continuously being discovered in various archives and libraries in Malta and abroad. This research work continues with other scholarly publications to come and with the yearly publication of a highly-respected journal. The society is among the most active in the world.
Keen collector of Melitensia, including books and manuscripts, maps and prints, portraits, autographs, postcards and philatelic items, Dr Ganado has written extensively on Maltese history, art, legislation, politics and philately, authoring fourteen books and well over 200 articles of academic interest in journals and books published in Malta, London, Rome, Vienna and Leipzig.
In 2008 Heritage Malta acquired Dr Ganado’s colossal collection of 450 antique Malta maps, all different, from the 16 th to the 19 th century and is now known as “The Albert Ganado Map Collection”. Housed at MUŻA in Valletta, his collection, together with the other maps which formed part of the national collection, is now the largest collection of maps of Malta in the world. In 2011 the International Map Collectors’ Society (IMCoS), London, awarded him with the prestigious Helen Wallis Award for his life contribution to the history of cartography. In October 2013 the University of Malta conferred on him a Doctorate in Literature (Honoris Causa), while in 2017 the Faculty of Laws honoured him with the Academic Excellence Award.
The New President of the MMS
Joseph Schirò, the new President, is the head emeritus of the Conservation Division within Heritage Malta. He co-edited the first festchrift in Malta, Liber Amicorum Dr. Albert Ganado in 1994, co-edited Malta 1796-1797 Thorvaldsen’s Visit in 1997, and co-authored Andersen and Malta in 1991, Fine Bookbindings in 1999, German Malta Maps in 2011, The Brocktorff Mapmakers in 2012, and Pre-Siege Maps of Malta – second century AD-1564 in 2016. His latest publication in 2017 is the translation and editing of a Russian book by Grigory Krayevsky titled The Island of Malta and the Order of St John.
He has also written several articles on paper conservation and cartography and is also the editor of the MMS Journal. He is currently also President of ICOM Malta and has been on the editorial board of the European Research Centre for Book and Paper Conservation-Restoration in Horn, Austria since its foundation ten years ago. He still works in his private capacity as a book and paper conservator- 2restorer and gives consultancy on preservation matters to archives and libraries in Malta and abroad.
In May 2000, he received the award of Cavaliere Ufficiale dell’Ordine al Merito Melitense from the Grand Magistry of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta in Rome. In 2014, he was presented with the inaugural national Outstanding Services to Library and Information Science Award by the Malta Library and Information Association (MaLIA). The citation read ‘for your pioneering work on expanding knowledge and education in the conservation and preservation domains’.
The New MMS Honorary Secretary
The new Honorary MMS Secretary, Ms Krystle Attard Trevisan Krystle Attard Trevisan is a print and book historian which led her to develop a love for maps. She is interested in the materiality of a map as a product of the printing process, and its development in print and book history. She currently occupies the role of Coordinator Curatorial Support at MUŻA, the Malta National Community Art Museum. MUŻA has the largest collection of maps of Malta in the world which allows her to expand her interest in the subject of maps and their production. Krystle is a PhD candidate at the Institute of English Studies within the School of Advanced Study at the University of London where she is studying print history and print collecting, specifically a collection of 4,500 prints belonging to the Mdina Cathedral Museum. This is the first large scale research project on historical European prints and print collecting in Malta. Krystle has two M.A.s, one in art history and another in literary tradition and popular culture. She has been a guest lecturer at the University of Malta where she also worked as Research Officer. She previously worked as a curator in a church museum. She has presented papers in 3international conferences, published and edited work in journals and volumes, and given public lectures and seminars. She has served on the Committee of the Malta Historical Society and is now the Honorary Secretary of the Malta Map Society.

From a press release by the Malta Map Society

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In 2020, the journal Nuevos Mundos/Mundos Nuevos (CERMA/EHESS, Paris) published a monographic section (Debate) on rivers and mountains in the Americas.
The table of contents of the section, coordinated by Louise Bénat-Tachot, Christophe Giudicelli and Mauricio Onetto Pavez, appears on the Web site of Nuevo Mundo: https://journals.openedition.org/nuevomundo/.

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Contents

  • Looks at Books
    • Metropolis in the Making: A Planning History of Amsterdam in the Dutch Golden Age
    • Les premières cartes détaillés du Hainaut français (début XVIIIe siècle) - The first detailed maps of French Hainaut (early 18th century)
    • Atlas van de Nederlanden en de grenzen met Frankrijk-Facsimile - Facsimile edition of the Atlas of the Netherlands and the frontiers with France
  • History and Cartography
    • The Val-Dieu collection in Liège cathedral's treasury
    • Cartographic Loyalty of an Explorer: Sven Hedin and Justus Perthes? Geographische Anstalt, 1894-1941 (45)
  • How I got into Cartography
    • Interview with Gijs Boink
  • The Brussels Map Circle
    • A word from the new President
    • 38th IMCoS International Symposium
    • Tetrad
    • WhatsMap? Thank You Chris!
    • Thank You Jean-Louis!

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