Category: Antique Maps

The Limits to Mapping

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

“The Limits to Mapping,” a talk Matthew Edney gave at Yale University last week as part of the Franke Program series of lectures, is now available on YouTube.

Edney, who’s Osher Professor in the History of Cartography at the University of Southern Maine and the director of the History of Cartography Project (his name’s come up before), also has a new book coming out next year: Cartography: The Ideal and Its History (University of Chicago Press) is apparently an argument about how problematic cartography as an all-encompassing concept is, which ought to make for an interesting read.

Digital Museum of Planetary Mapping

Published on by Jonathan Crowe
Camille Flammarion, “Mappemonde géographique de la planète Mars,” Terres du Ciel, 1884.

The Digital Museum of Planetary Mapping is an online collection of maps of the planets and moons of our solar system. There are more than two thousand maps in the catalogue, some dating as far back as the 17th century, but the bulk of them, understandably, are much more recent; also understandably, Mars and the Moon are the subject of most of the maps (40 and 46 percent, respectively).

The site is more like a blog than a library catalogue: it’s powered by WordPress and the individual listings are blog posts, but that’s perfectly legitimate, albeit less elegant. (But then who am I to judge?)

The project was presented at the European Planetary Science Congress in Berlin last month: for news coverage, see Phys.org and Space.com; the press release is here. [WMS/WMS]

Pittsburgh Rare Book and Map Theft Update

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

I missed some news stories published in August about the case of the rare books and maps stolen from the Carnegie Library in Pittsburgh. The Caliban Book Shop’s accounts were frozen once owner John Schulman was charged; as the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported on 2 August, a judge granted Schulman access to the store accounts to enable him to pay his bills and employees’ wages; neither Schulman nor his wife, who co-owns the store, can take money from those accounts, though. Meanwhile the New York Times looks at the impact the arrests of Schulman and former Carnegie Library archivist Gregory Priore has had on the rare books community—especially the buyers who may find themselves in possession of stolen goods. [WMS/WMS]

De Iberia a España: An Exhibition of Maps of Spain

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

An exhibition at the Instituto Geográfico Nacional in Madrid: De Iberia a España a través de los mapas (“From Iberia to Spain via Maps”), which looks at the changing cartographic representations of Spain and the Iberian peninsula from classical times to the 19th century. Sixty maps on display, plus books, perspective views and a globe. The year-long exhibition runs until 20 April 2019. Free admission. [WMS]

Theatre of the World

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

In The Spectator, Travis Elborough reviews Thomas Reinertsen Berg’s Theatre of the World: The Maps that Made World History (Hodder & Stoughton, 6 September). This is a translation (by Alison McCullough); the original book appeared in Norwegian as Verdensteater: Kartenes historie last year. Elborough, who is himself an author of map books,1 calls the book “impressively global and touchingly parochial, as his native Norway and Scandinavia in general often and unashamedly take centre stage in the narrative. (A note in the foreword explains that the book has to a certain extent been de-Norwegianised for the English edition.)” But then he goes on to lament the omission of thoroughly British-centric content. Go figure.

Theatre of the World is out now in the U.K.; the U.S. edition, published by Little, Brown, and with its title thoroughly Americanized as Theater of the World, comes out on December 4th.

Related: Map Books of 2018.

Map Donated to Hiroshima Museum Is One of the Oldest Known Maps of Japan

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

A map recently donated to the Hiroshima Prefectural Museum of History has been dated to the mid-14th century, making it one of the oldest maps of Japan, The Mainichi reports. “It was previously believed that a map in the ‘Shugaisho’ encyclopedia from 1548 was the oldest known map covering the whole of Japan. While Ninna-ji temple in Kyoto also holds a map of Japan dating to 1305, it does not cover the western part of the country.” The map is on display at the museum until September 24. [Tony Campbell]

The Harvard Map Collection at 200

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

The Harvard Map Collection is celebrating its 200th anniversary. There’s an exhibition, Follow the Map: The Harvard Map Collection at 200, which runs through October 26 at Harvard’s Pusey Library, as well as a symposium, Follow the Map: Reflecting on 200 Years of the Harvard Map Collection, which takes place October 25 and 26; Susan Schulten will be delivering the keynote. [WMS]

Update: Here’s the exhibition catalogue.

Humphrey Llwyd Exhibition in Wales

Published on by Jonathan Crowe
Humphrey Llwyd, “Cambriae Typus,” from Ortelius, Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, 1574. Map, 472 × 347 mm. National Library of Wales.

An exhibition celebrating Welsh author and cartographer Humphrey Llwyd (1527-1568) is taking place at the National Library of Wales: BBC News, press release. Among other things, Llwyd produced the first published map of Wales (rather than as a part of another map), the Cambriae Typus, which appeared as an addendum to Ortelius’s Theatrum Orbis Terrarum in 1573. The exhibition runs until the 31st at the Library in Aberystwyth; admission is free. The Library’s digital version of the map is available here.

Maps of the Battle of the Plains of Abraham at the Canadian War Museum

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

CBC Ottawa looks at four hand-drawn maps of the Battle of the Plains of Abraham of 1759, in which British forces captured the city of Québec. The maps are held in the vaults of the Canadian War Museum and are too delicate to put on display; I have not as yet been able to find online versions of these maps there or at Library and Archives Canada.

Arrests Made in Pittsburgh Rare Book and Map Thefts

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

Arrests have been made in the case of the rare books and maps stolen from the Carnegie Library in Pittsburgh, the New York Times and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette report. Former library archivist Gregory Priore and John Schulman, the owner of the Caliban Book Shop, are accused of stealing some $8 million in items from the library over a 20 year period, about $1 million of which has since been identified and returned.

They both face numerous charges, including theft, receiving stolen property, conspiracy, retail theft and forgery; Priore has also been charged with library theft and criminal mischief, while Schulman is also facing charges of dealing in the proceeds of illegal activity, theft by deception and deceptive business practices.

Both men turned themselves in last Friday and were released on their own recognizance; a preliminary hearing is scheduled for 1 August. For his part Priore seems to be cooperating with the investigation.

Previously: New Details Emerging in Pittsburgh Rare Book and Map Thefts; 314 Rare Books and Maps Stolen from Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh.

An Exhibition of Maps Smuggled Out of Napoleonic France

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

Gentleman, Soldier, Scholar and Spy: The Napoleonic-Era Maps of Robert Clifford, an exhibition running at the McMaster Museum of Art in Hamilton, Ontario through 1 September 2018, showcases an unusual collection of maps held by the McMaster University Library: a cache of maps smuggled out of France in the early 1800s by British spy and cartographer Robert Clifford.

Clifford’s maps reveal a world on the cusp of an evolutionary shift in cartography brought about by the Napoleonic wars. Hand-coloured, manuscript maps depicting the precise and exacting geometry of Vauban-designed fortified cities give way to maps printed from engraved plates, incorporating new techniques and symbology to satisfy the shifting focus onto the surrounding landscape of unordered nature. Maps used primarily for the siege of cities in previous generations are re-placed by maps of vast expanses of territory for a new style of open warfare.

How the maps ended up at McMaster is a story in itself; see the Hamilton Spectator’s coverage. [Tony Campbell]

New Details Emerging in Pittsburgh Rare Book and Map Thefts

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

Some developments in the case of the rare books and maps stolen from the Carnegie Library in Pittsburgh, which came to light last April. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported last week that a former library archivist and a bookseller are the focus of the investigation.

The former archivist of the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh’s rare book collection told investigators he conspired with the owner of an Oakland bookseller since the 1990s to steal and resell items taken from there.

Gregory Priore, who was terminated from the library on June 28, 2017, and John Schulman, who co-owns Caliban Book Shop, are under investigation for theft, receiving stolen property and criminal mischief, according to hundreds of pages of documents unsealed Thursday in Allegheny County Common Pleas Court.

Charges have not yet been laid. A search warrant was executed at the Caliban Book Shop’s warehouse last August and several of the items reported stolen from the library were apparently recovered.

Note the timeline: we first heard about this in April 2018, but the searches had already been executed the previous August. The thefts had apparently been going on for decades but were only discovered in April 2017. We’re not finding things out in real time. [WMS]

Previously: 314 Rare Books and Maps Stolen from Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh.