Related Papers
PORTUGAL AND EAST ASIA V: VISUAL AND TEXTUAL REPRESENTATIONS IN EXCHANGS, BETWEEN EUROPE AND EAST ASIA, eds. Catherine Jami and Luis Saraiva, Singapore – London: World Scientific
"The First Map of China Printed in Europe [Ortelius 1584] Reconsidered: Confusions of its Authorship and the Influence of the Chinese Cartography " .
2018 •
Dorofeeva-Lichtmann Vera
The earliest printed map of China in the European cartographical tradition is found in the 1584 edition of the Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, the first world atlas in a modern sense (1st ed. 1570) by Abraham Ortelius (1527–1598). Ortelius ascribed the map of China to a ‘Ludouicus Georgius’, now generally believed to be a Latinised name of the Portuguese cartographer Luis Jorge de Barbuda (fl. 1575–1599) in the service Philip II of Spain (1527–1598, r. 1556–1598). In the first part of this paper I shall trace the history of the authorship identification, revealing transmitted errors and confusions, which resulted from misreading of primary sources and secondary literature. Attention to the provenance of the map of China in the Theatrum was first called by E.W. Dahlgren [1911], who took notice of a letter about it, written to Ortelius by Benito Arias Montano (1527–1598) on the 28th of February 1576. Armando Cortesão [1935, 1960] identified the map’s author with a Portuguese cartographer Luis Jorge (Luys Jorge, Luys Gorge, Luis Georgio, since 1596 registered as Luis Jorge de Barbuda), having meticulously collected data about him scattered among different written sources (letters, royal cédulas, collective declarations). Most of the references to Luis Jorge de Barbuda in scholarly literature are still based on the seminal study by Cortesão, however, direct references tend to diminish. Giving full credit to the arguments of Cortesão in favour of his identification, I shall discuss some of its weak points. I argue that, despite being highly plausible, it cannot be taken ‘without reservation’ and should be marked in reference studies as a reconstructed identification. In the second part I shall discuss two related structural features of the map: its orientation with the West on top and the location in the West of a huge Lake (Lacus). Having recalled practical and cosmographical reasons for the western orientation in the European and Chinese cartographical traditions, I shall try to demonstrate that the western orientation of the investigated map of China originates from portolan-style world maps. At the same time, I shall provide evidence of borrowing the lake image from the Chinese cartography. Both of these features have not yet been considered in scholarly literature from the proposed perspective. Especially interesting is their combination, as an example of fusion of cartographical traditions.
The First Portuguese Maps of China in Francisco Rodrigues’ Book and Atlas (c.1512)
Ivo Carneiro de Sousa
Imago Mundi: The International Journal for the History of Cartography
Can Lost Maps Speak? Toward a Cultural History of Map Reading in Medieval China
2018 •
Linda Rui Feng
Despite the fact that virtually no Chinese maps have survived from the first millennium, it is nonetheless possible to reconstruct a rich context associated with their production, use and perception from a variety of written sources. Three cases from the Tang dynasty (618–907 CE) are presented in this article in which the characteristics of the missing maps emerge through their associated texts, which have outlasted them. These examples include two documents that once accompanied maps presented to the emperor and an anecdote that refers to a map of the remote southern frontier. They demonstrate that the maps were designed not only to encapsulate imperial territory but also to serve as guideposts for aspirational travel. They were also perceived by their users as invitations to experiences both desirable and undesirable. -------- Les cartes perdues peuvent-elles parler? Vers une histoire culturelle de la lecture des cartes dans la Chine médiévale En dépit du fait que quasiment aucune carte du premier millénaire n’ait survécu, il est toutefois possible de reconstituer un riche contexte associé à leur production, leur usage et leur perception, à partir de sources écrites variées. Trois cas datant de la dynastie Tang (618–907 apr. j.-c.) sont présentés dans cet article, dans lesquels les caractéristiques des cartes manquantes émergent à partir des textes qui leur étaient associés et qui leur ont survécu. Ces exemples comprennent deux documents qui étaient autrefois joints à des cartes présentées à l’empereur, ainsi qu’une anecdote qui se réfère à une carte de la lointaine frontière méridionale. Ils démontrent que les cartes n’étaient pas seulement dessinées pour contenir le territoire impérial, mais aussi pour servir de guides pour d’ambitieux voyages. Elles étaient aussi perçues par leurs utilisateurs comme des invitations à des expériences tout à la fois désirables et indésirables. ------- Können verlorene Karten sprechen? Überlegungen zu einer Kulturgeschichte des Kartenlesens im mittelalterlichen China Ungeachtet des Umstands, dass so gut wie keine chinesischen Karten aus dem ersten Jahrtausend erhalten geblieben sind, ist es möglich, aus einer Vielfalt von Textquellen eine umfangreiche Tradition ihrer Herstellung, Nutzung und Rezeption zu rekonstruieren. Drei Beispiele aus der Tang-Dynastie (618–907 n. Chr.) werden in diesem Beitrag vorgestellt. Anhand der begleitenden Texte lassen sich die Charakteristika der verlorenen Karten herausarbeiten. Zwei der Beispiele sind überlieferte Dokumente, die zu Karten gehörten, die dem Kaiser übermittelt wurden. Hinzu kommt eine Anekdote über eine Karte der entferntesten südlichen Landesgrenzen. Die Beispiele zeigen, dass die Karten nicht nur gezeichnet wurden, um das Imperium zusammenfassend darzustellen, sondern auch, um als Wegweiser für ambitionierte Reisen zu dienen. Sie wurden zudem als Einladungen zu mehr oder weniger erstrebenswerten Erfahrungen verstanden. ----- ¿Pueden los mapas perdidos hablar? Hacia una historia cultural sobre la lectura de mapas en la china medieval A pesar de que prácticamente no se ha conservado ningún mapa chino del primer milenio, es posible, sin embargo, reconstruir un rico contexto relacionado con su producción, uso y percepción gracias a una variedad de fuentes escritas. En este artículo se presentan tres casos de la dinastía Tang (618−907) en los que las características de los mapas desaparecidos emergen a través de los textos que han llegado a la actualidad. Estos ejemplos incluyen dos documentos que una vez acompañaron a los mapas que fueron presentados al emperador, y una anécdota que hace referencia a un mapa de la remota frontera meridional. Demuestran que los mapas se diseñaron no solo para encapsular el territorio imperial, sino también para servir de guía para la planificación de viajes. Sus usuarios también los percibían como invitaciones a experiencias tanto deseables como indeseables.
Journal of Jesuit Studies
Jesuit Mapmaking in China: D’Anville’s Nouvelle [sic] Atlas de la Chine (1737), edited by Roberto M. Ribeiro, and John W. O’Malley
2015 •
Laura Hostetler
“The Selden Map Rediscovered: A Chinese Map of East Asian Shipping Routes, c.1619.” Imago Mundi 65:1 (January 2013).
Robert Batchelor
Imago Mundi
Review: Mapping Asia: Cartographic Encounters betweenEast and West. Regional Symposium of the ICACommission on the History of Cartography, 2017,edited by Martijn Storms, Mario Cams and ImreJosef Demhardt
2019 •
Dorofeeva-Lichtmann Vera
Imago Mundi
The Selden Map Rediscovered: A Chinese Map of East Asian Shipping Routes, c.1619
Robert Batchelor
A new digital comparison of the Chinese World Maps of Giulio Aleni and Matteo Ricci
2018 •
Clara D Yu
The cartographic contents of two world map sheets of father Giulio Aleni S.J., archived in the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana in Rome, are digitally analysed. The maps, printed in at least two editions starting in the year 1623, were inspired and influenced by the more famous Matteo Ricci’s world map, printed in different versions, after the end of the XVI century. Although it is a later cartography, the Aleni’s world map is a unique masterpiece worldwide, as it is very likely the first map of the world known at that time, written in Chinese and having a size enabling an easy use of the map itself. It is a map that merges the Western and Chinese geographical knowledge and is a relatively accurate representation, with some exceptions, of the actual outlines of continents which are depicted, as in the large Matteo Ricci’s world map, from a non-Eurocentric point of view. Arriving at Macao in the Jesuits’ mission in 1610 Aleni taught mathematics at the college there, while learning the ...
Review: Mapping Asia: Cartographic Encounters between East and West. Regional Symposium of the ICA Commission on the History of Cartography, 2017, edited by Martijn Storms, Mario Cams and Imre Josef Demhardt
Review: Mapping Asia Cartographic Encounters between East and West 2017 Imago Mundi 71:2 (2019)
2019 •
Dorofeeva-Lichtmann Vera
2009 [article] “Maps and Memory: Readings of Cartography in Twelfth- and Thirteenth- Century Song China.” Imago Mundi: International Journal for the History of Cartography 61:2 (2009), 145-167.
Hilde De Weerdt
