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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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Michael Timothy Jones

23 March 1960 - 18 January 2021

Michael T. Jones, an influential computer-science pioneer who, among other achievements, was a creator of Google Earth, died at his home in Sunnyvale, CA on 18 January 2021. He was 60 years old and had been undergoing cancer treatment at the City of Hope.
Michael was born in San Diego, California, and spent his early childhood there and in Vista and Fresno, as the son of Glenn and Dorothy Jones. When Michael was in junior high school, his family moved to Greensboro, North Carolina. He was so advanced in his aptitude and achievement that he began programming computers when he was in fourth grade, worked as a teaching assistant at North Carolina A&T University while in high school, and finished his formal education and launched his own high-tech business after one year at North Carolina State University. In 1980, in North Carolina, he married June Young, who survives him and with whom he recently celebrated his 40th wedding anniversary.
Through his 20s and early 30s Michael Jones founded or worked for a number of computer companies in North Carolina. In his early 30s he moved to California and was an engineer and manager for the innovative company Silicon Graphics. Before age 40, he was the chairman, CEO, and president of Intrinsic Graphics, from which he spun out a digital mapping company called Keyhole, whose maps were extensively used by CNN and other outlets in their reporting during the Iraq war. In 2004, Google acquired Keyhole, and its technology became what is now known as Google Earth. It was also the basis for the countless Google mapping tools used by more than a billion people worldwide every day.
At Google, Michael served first as Chief Technology Officer for Google's range of mapping products, and then as Chief Technology Advocate for the company as a whole. In that role he became well-known around the world for his leadership and advocacy in the many areas of his passionate expertise. These spanned a very broad range: from high-definition photography and boat design; to ocean mapping and conservation; to architecture, the social implications of technology, and a deep knowledge of history.
In June 2020, Michael Jones was awarded the Patron's Medal, the highest honor of the Royal Geographical Society, in London. "Everyone is inventive," he said, in an interview on receiving the award. "You need only ignore limits and ask yourself 'how should it be?' "
"Inventors are just laborers toiling to make things be as we feel they should," he said. "For me, a key trait is passion for ideas, loving them as parents love children and grandchildren: embracing them, sacrificing for them, excusing the worst and believing the best of them, being patient and supportive with an enduring love as they mature. Like children, they take time to develop into the brightness of their promise. I have been this way all my life."
Michael's curiosity, intellect, and achievement were exceeded only by his generosity and capacity to love. His work has influenced billions of people who might never know his name but are touched every day by his ideas. He is mourned by all fortunate enough to have known him.

From MercuryNews.com. Retrieved on 29 January 2021.

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The Newberry Library’s Hermon Dunlap Smith Center for the History of Cartography is pleased to announce Mapping Nature Across the Americas, a four-week NEH seminar for schoolteachers. Based at the library, due to the ongoing pandemic, the seminar will be held entirely online from 12 July to 6 August 2021.
The seminar directors, Dr. James Akerman (a geographer and the Newberry’s Curator of Maps) and Dr. Kathleen Brosnan (an environmental historian and the Travis Chair of Modern American History, University of Oklahoma) will lead 16 schoolteachers on a course of reading, discussion, and research.
Read more.

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The blog of our Member Stanislas De Peuter (CartaHistorica) focuses on the three most important Dutch maps of the Strait of Magellan and Cape Horn. They provide ample information on several the Dutch passages.
Read more.

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