Imago Mundi is a fully-refereed, English-language journal founded in 1935. It is the only international, interdisciplinary and scholarly journal solely devoted to the study of early maps in all their aspects. Full-length articles, with abstracts in English, French, German and Spanish, deal with the history and interpretation of non-current maps and mapmaking in any part of the world. Imago Mundi also publishes shorter articles that communicate significant new findings or new opinions. All articles are fully illustrated.
Read more.
Matthew Edney has just posted his annual list of books on all aspects of map history published in the last year, as he has noticed them. There are 96 items, 60 from 2022, the remainder being items missed from 2020 and 2021.
Link to the list.
Matthew Edney is Osher Professor in the History of Cartography, University of Southern Maine, and Director, History of Cartography Project, University of Wisconsin–Madison. He is also the author of numerous books and articles on the history of cartography.
DigHimapper - Crowdsourcing the Arenberg map collection.
For a long time historical maps have been cherished as objects of great value and beauty, illustrating the evolving representation of the world, cities and (rural) landscapes. Recently, they tend to be seen as more than mere illustrations. Up until now, however, preparing historical maps and building spatial databases of directly deductible information to allow the use of these maps as primary sources for fundamental research, was a very labor-intensive process. This is caused mainly by the necessity of two time-consuming preparatory steps that have to be undertaken to (pre-)process historical maps: 1) the georectification (overlay of historical maps with present-day situation) and 2) the spatial annotation of toponyms (transcription and localisation of place names). Grasping the full opportunities of the recently started close FED-tWIN-co-operation between the History Department of the University of Antwerp and the Belgian State Archives, this project aims to offer an alternative to solve the bottle-neck in the processing and use of digital historical maps: the development of a web-application for crowdsourcing both the georectification and spatial annotation of historical maps. Teaming up with ICT-partner Webmapper, ca. 3 000 high-resolution scanned historical maps from the Arenberg collection, digitized by and held at the Belgian State Archives, will be opened to the 'crowd' in order to establish a spatial database of up to (or over) 100 000 toponyms. Once completed, this database serves a threefold research objective: 1) fundamental research on landscape history based on 'big data of the past', in this case large datasets of toponyms; 2) using local toponyms as a way to include other sources for spatial research and 3) an exploration of the possibilities and limitations of crowdsourcing when scaling-up the research in the coming years.
Read more.
The Malta Map Society (MMS) has produced a facsimile of four portolan atlases of the eighteenth-century Maltese captain, Antonio Borg, which are found at the British Library, Mss 13957-13960. This facsimile, consisting of four bound volumes in leather, will be deposited at the National Library of Malta for the benefit of all Maltese scholars. An official ceremony will be held on 30 November 2022 at 18.00 h in the presence of the Minister for National Heritage, the Arts and Local Government, the Hon. Dr Owen Bonnici.
On the invitation of the Malta Map Society, Mr Hans D. Kok, a Dutch expert in historical cartography, a collector, a writer and co-author of a number of standard works on the vellum charts of the Dutch East India Company will be giving a talk to MMS members and friends, entitled Is it a sea chart?. He will be shedding light on what qualifies a map as a sea chart.
Following this talk, there will be the presentation of the bound volumes to the National Library. For the occasion, the Malta Map Society has put up an exhibition of some of the more important documents found in the portolan atlases.
A message from Anthony Mullan, Chair, Ristow Prize Award
Washington Map Society.
October 23, 2022
As many of you know, the Washington Map Society since 1994 has sponsored the
Ristow Prize contest for the best essay in the history of cartography. Because of very few submissions received this year (2022), we cancelled the contest. But the contest will take place next year (2023). You can help me by responding to this email just indicating that you received it. I plan to send out in the next two weeks an announcement giving the particulars of who is eligible to apply, the length of the essay, deadlines, etc. If you have responded to this email,
you will receive the announcement. Please contact me at cubaj2020@gmail.com.
Kind regards,
Anthony
Did you know that the GR routes were devised by the Belgian Maurice Cosyn? Founder of the Sentiers ardennais, he was the precursor of the famous Sentiers de grande randonnée and published numerous guidebooks devoted to the tourist attractions of the Ardennes. This year, these guides have entered the public domain. They are now freely accessible via the website of the Royal Library of Belgium (KBR).
When Cosyn was head of the Touring Club of Belgium, he was the instigator of several hiking trails that still exist today. Among them, the first Grande Randonnée (long-distance) paths, better known under the name GR, recognisable by their famous red and white markers. The GR trails invite you to discover lesser-known places that you would probably never have crossed otherwise. So don't hesitate to consult these guides before your next excursion in the Ardennes.
Read more. Or have a look at the interactive map.
Visages de l’exploration au XIXe siècle – Du mythe à l’histoire [Faces of exploration in the 19th century – From myth to history] - Map Circle Excursion to Paris on 2 July 2022
Looks at Books
Visages de l’exploration au XIXe siècle [Faces of exploration in the 19th century] - Catalogue of the Exhibition
Colonisation & Propagande [Colonisation and Propaganda]
