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Editing Early and Historical Atlases
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Editing Early and Historical Atlases Papers given at the Twenty-ninth Annual Conference on Editorial Problems University of Toronto, 5-6 November 1993 Edited by Joan Winearls
UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO PRESS Toronto Buffalo London
www.utppublishing.com University of Toronto Press Incorporated 1995 Toronto Buffalo London Printed in Canada ISBN O-8O2O-O623-X
Printed on acid-free paper
Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data Conference on Editorial Problems (29th : 1993 : University of Toronto) Editing early and historical atlases : papers given at the twenty-ninth annual Conference on Editorial Problems, University of Toronto, 5-6 November 1993 ISBN 0-8020-0623-X
i. Atlases - Editing - Congresses. Joan, 1937- . II. Title GA3OO.C65 1993
912.014
I. Winearls,
€95-931813-5
University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial assistance to its publishing program of the Canada Council and the Ontario Arts Council.
Contents
List of Tables and Figures vii Notes on Contributors ix Introduction JOAN WINEARLS
xi
1 From Books with Maps to Books as Maps: The Editor in the Creation of the Atlas Idea JAMES R. AKERMAN
3
2 Breaking the Ortelian Pattern: Historical Atlases with a New Program, 1747-1830 WALTER A. GOFFART
49
3 'Commode, complet, uniforme, et suivi': Problems in Atlas Editing in Enlightenment France MARY SPONBERG PEDLEY
83
4 Jomard: The Geographic Imagination and the First Great Facsimile Atlases ANNE GODLEWSKA
109
5 Atlas Structures and Their Influence on Editorial Decisions: Two Recent Case Histories WILLIAM G. DEAN
137
6 Maps as a Morality Play: Volume i of the Historical Atlas of Canada R. COLE HARRIS
163
vi / Contents 7 The Politics of Editing a National Historical Atlas: A Commentary DERYCK W. HOLDSWORTH l8l
Members of the Conference 197 List of Previous Publications 201
List of Figures and Tables
Figure 1.1 The British Isles and Atlantic Europe, chart 2, in an anonymous atlas attributed to Giacomo Giroldi (Venice?, ca. 1440) 6 Table 1.1 Map/Text indexes for selected printed cartographically illustrated books and atlases to 1600 21 Figure 1.2 Abraham Ortelius Theatrum orbis terrarum (Antwerp: Aegid. Coppens Diest, 1570) showing the typical layout of late sixteenth-century atlases 25 Table 1.2 Cartographic and textual elements in selected printed map sets and atlases, 1570-1600 26 Figure 1.3 Combined index to counties and table of maps for Christopher Saxton's atlas of England and Wales (1579) 28 Figure 1.4 The order and number of map sheets for parts of Europe in Mercator's Atlas (Duisberg, 1595) 30 Figure 1.5 Gerard Mercator, 'Eboracum, Lincolnia, Derbia, ... Norfolcia/ from his Atlantis pars altera (Duisberg: Mercator's heirs, 1595) 33 Figure 2.1 Maps from Nicolas de La Mare's Traite de la police ... et une description historique et topographique de Paris (1705) 52-3 Figure 2.2 The map of the barbarian invasions and accompanying text from Emmanuel de las Cases Atlas geographique, historique, chronologique et genealogique (Paris, 1804) 63 Figure 2.3 A plate from E. Quin, Historical Atlas (London, 1830) 65
viii / List of Tables and Figures Figure 3.1 A map store in Paris, from Jaillot, Atlas nouveau (Paris, 1692) 90 Figure 3.2 Title page from the Robert de Vaugondy Atlas universel (Paris, 1757) 96 Figure 3.3 A portion of the list of subscribers to the Robert de Vaugondy Atlas universel (Paris, 1757) 99 Figure 4.1 One of 'Dix Mappemondes ...' [the Turin Beatus map] from Jomard's Monuments de la geographie [1847?] 124 Figure 4.2 The Turin Beatus map from Santarem's Atlas compose de mappemondes et des cartes hydrographiques et historiques (1842) 125 Figure 4.3 A photographic reproduction of the Turin Beatus map in Prince Yusuf Kamal's Monumenta Cartographica Africae et Aegypti (Cairo, 1926-51) 126 Table 5.1 Structural Matrix - Economic Atlas of Ontario (1969) 142-3 Figure 5.1 Plate 85, Transportation and Communications' from the Economic Atlas of Ontario (1969) 146-7 Table 5.2 Per cent attributed authorship Historical Atlas of Canada (1987-1993) 149 Figure 5.2 Plate 51 'The Printed Word' from the Historical Atlas of Canada, Volume n (1993) 150-1 Figure 6.1 Plate 55 from the Historical Atlas of Canada, Volume i (1987) showing the various house types that developed in Quebec before 1800 174-5 Figure 7.1 Plate 31 'Winnipeg: A Divided City/ from Historical Atlas of Canada, Volume in (1990) 190-1
Notes on Contributors
Joan Winearls is Map Librarian at the University of Toronto Library and author of Mapping Upper Canada, 1780-1867 (1991) as well as other articles on nineteenth-century Canadian mapping. James R. Akerman is Assistant Director of the Hermon Dunlap Smith Center for the History of Cartography, The Newberry Library, Chicago. He has published several articles on the development of road maps in America and a companion article to this one on early atlases is forthcoming in Imago Mundi. Walter A. Goffart is a professor in the Department of History, University of Toronto and has published extensively on the Middle Ages and the Barbarian invasions. He is completing a book on the mapping of medieval history to 1870. Mary Sponberg Pedley is an Assistant Curator of Maps in the William L. Clements Library, University of Michigan and has published extensively on the French map trade in the eighteenth century, including Bel et Wile: The Work of the Robert de Vaugondy Family of Map Makers (1992). Anne Godlewska is an assistant professor in the Department of Geography, Queen's University and specializes in the history of geographical thought and cartography with particular reference to France in the nineteenth century. William G. Dean, Professor Emeritus, Department of Geography, University of Toronto was Director of the Historical Atlas of Canada (1979-1993) and Editor of the Economic Atlas of Ontario (1969).
x / Contributors R. Cole Harris, a professor in the Department of Geography, University of British Columbia, is a leading authority on the historical geography of Canada, and was Editor, Historical Atlas of Canada, Volume i (1987). Deryck W. Holdsworth is an associate professor in the Department of Geography, Pennsylvania State University and was co-editor with Donald Kerr of the Historical Atlas of Canada, Volume in (1990).
JOAN WINEARLS
Introduction
The twenty-ninth annual Conference on Editorial Problems, which took place at the University of Toronto on 5 and 6 November 1993, was organized in honour of the imminent completion of the final volume of the Historical Atlas of Canada, one of the finest modern thematic atlases. To acknowledge this event a group of international scholars was assembled to give papers on a wide variety of aspects of atlas making from the beginning to the present. The kinds of editing questions atlases pose are different from those that arise in the editing and transcription of a text and the preparation of a correct or authentic version of an author's work. The 'editing' of an early atlas may have involved any or all of the gathering, reissuing and revising of maps already in existence, or the authoring of new maps. The editing of a modern atlas is frequently part of the creation of a multi-authored new work. On the other hand, the preparation of a facsimile edition of an early atlas, a largely graphic document, depends today mainly on high quality photographic techniques to produce an exact replica of the original work, not on a transcription of text. In addition, when one considers atlases as reference works, yet another range of problems comes forward. For example, many 'authors/ 'cartographers' and/or 'editors/ 'publishers/ engravers, and printers may have been involved directly or indirectly in the preparation of an atlas whether early or modern, many working together at the same time. This clearly gives rise to questions of authorship and responsibility for the work. Whose work is it? It seemed fitting, then, to propose as the 'problem' for this Conference a two-track discussion of atlas editing: original editing problems associated with various atlases from earlier centuries, for which there are four essays; and an analysis of editing problems with atlases in a
xii / Joan Winearls modern multi-disciplinary setting, for which there are two essays and a commentary. At the same time all of the papers help to give a diverse picture of an important reference work as it has evolved through the ages. In general, very little has been written on the topic of the editing of early atlases; moreover, the genre of historical atlases has been almost totally neglected.1 The study of historical atlases particularly should be an important aspect of historiography since historical atlases were prepared most frequently for schools, became part of the educational cycle, and oriented the thinking of generations of adults as a result. Historical atlases are also the earliest thematic atlases to have been produced, and this warrants the study of them at some length. Although there is some literature on modern atlases, much of it has been concerned with cartographic design, visual and cognitive learning theories, and the content of particular atlases, for example those for children and schools. The literature is generally silent on the shaping of content through editing processes.2 Work on cartographic publications generally focuses on problems in the making of maps and sometimes implies that atlases are simply bound sets of maps, a view that - although true for some atlases over the centuries - greatly underestimates the complexities inherent in the making or editing of most atlases as they have evolved. In addition, although there have been some studies on individual early and modern atlases, there have been no general analyses of the evolution of the atlas as a work in its own right and of the decisions made by the many editors who helped to shape it over the centuries. As James Akerman says in the introduction to his paper 'an atlas is a map of maps, and its editor a meta-cartographer. The editor's primary role in the creation of an atlas is not to draw maps but to make sense of them through the logic or structure of the entire book.' The research and discussion which this Conference stimulated was overdue and the essays resulting from it will undoubtedly stimulate more work not only on the nature and history of the evolution of the atlas as a book, but also on the atlas as a 'text' of contemporary times. Despite the apparent gap between the earliest true general topographical atlases of Ortelius and Mercator and the sophisticated thematic, regional atlases of today, it is important to see that all types of atlases are on a continuum, in terms of attempting to provide a series of related images of certain places at a certain time. All of this is attributable to the various persons and professions which directed their compilation.
Introduction / xiii The volume begins with James Akerman's essay on the origin of the atlas concept in the late sixteenth century, which immediately introduces the notion of the structure and definition of an atlas. Most of the other essays acknowledge the implicit structure, whether of content, arrangement, format, or cartographic style, that was generally being imposed on atlases throughout the centuries by the mix of interested parties who can be designated by the term 'producers/ Although, as Akerman points out, the Ortelian/Mercator approach in the late sixteenth century effectively rejected the concept of atlases made to the order of a single buyer, Mary Pedley indicates a return to this type of atlas in seventeenth and eighteenth century France for reasons of financial constraint and the organization of the map/atlas trade. This effectively put a brake on the evolution of the concept of the fully edited atlas, and would seem to invite further research into the nature and form of the seventeenth and eighteenth century atlas in other parts of Europe. Walter Goffart pursues the topic of the contents of early historical atlases from the mid-eighteenth to the mid nineteenth centuries. He illustrates the slow growth of such notions as the use of chronological order and comprehensive coverage of themes and periods in the early atlases, approaches which are now taken for granted in historical atlases, as is evident in the essays by Dean, Harris and Holdsworth. Anne Godlewska's essay, which analyses the methodology and biases of a nineteenth century geographer, effectively deals with the origins of the role of the modern atlas editor. Hers is the only paper to discuss the 're-editing' of maps or atlases for publication in what may be the first critical analysis of the creation of the great facsimile atlases for the study of early cartography and the use of maps in explaining ideas of early geographers. The culmination of this historical perspective is a series of personal reflections on the practical component of atlas editing from three scholars intimately involved in the major multi-disciplinary project of the Historical Atlas of Canada. The Director, William Dean, sets the stage with an analysis of the role of structure in atlases and the evolution of the modern thematic atlas. He offers a comparison of the editing problems he encountered in the two atlas projects of which he was Editor or Director: the Economic Atlas of Ontario (1969) and the Historical Atlas of Canada (1987-93). Cole Harris, Editor of Volume i of the latter, From the Beginning to 1800 (1987), discusses the concept of the volume as a 'text/ a narrative of the early history of Canada as seen through the eyes of modern historiography, a theme touched on by Akerman with reference to the concept of 'nation' implicit in the
xiv / Joan Winearls Christopher Saxton atlas. Deryck Holdsworth's paper is essentially both a commentary on those of Dean and Harris and a hard-hitting exposition of the daily editing problems faced by one of the editors of Volume m: Addressing the Twentieth Century (1990). The essays in this Conference volume highlight several significant issues in atlas historiography, as well as suggesting lines for further research. The role of textual content and the question of the proportion of text to maps in an atlas is first introduced by Akerman. He concludes that it was the inferior editorial position of the text rather than the absolute amount of text in atlases such as those by Blaeu which separated the atlas from an illustrated book. His discussion of the appearance of preliminaries such as contents pages, indexes and introductions is carried forward by Pedley. One of the innovative features of the Vaugondys' atlases in mid-eighteenth century France was the full analysis of sources in the introductory text. Goffart notes, for the same century, that for historical atlas makers text was considered essential to explain the maps, and in some cases was placed prominently around the map. In Jomard's creation of a facsimile atlas without text, Godlewska stresses the importance of understanding the particular geographer's approach to his work - the notion that the maps would speak for themselves. This theme suggests that further quantitative and qualitative research to analyze the role that text plays in both early and modern atlases would yield interesting results. Certainly the problems of how much text should be included and how texts should be edited are clearly still with us. Cole Harris's concern for small but succinct amounts of text in Volume i of the Historical Atlas of Canada, and William Dean's indication of the great problems associated with the production-editing and translating of text for both atlases with which he was associated, both make this point. Again, the problem of dealing with text from a technical point of view is raised by Akerman with regard to the need for different printing platforms for text and maps, by Pedley because of the separation of print from book publishing, and by Dean with reference to the handling of text production for the modern scribed or computer-made atlas. All essays note the vital role of the cartographer, who was sometimes identical to the author or editor and sometimes not, in producing a distinctive atlas style. In both early and modern instances, the cartographic design was vital to the success and also to the impact of the atlas on readers. This is particularly evident in all three of the essays on the modern atlas. For the early nineteenth century Walter Goffart notes the use of innovative designs in early historical atlases
Introduction / xv which have had a strong impact on later work. The use of flow-lines to depict movement of peoples particularly, he notes, has been used or mis-used ever since it was developed. However, one under-used motif - Edward Quin's dramatic dark clouds of ignorance slowly rolling back to reveal the known world - is lamented by William Dean in his brief survey of nineteenth century thematic atlases, in contrast to Goffart, who does not regret its subsequent neglect. The problem or question of authorship arises in several essays. An interesting question about the distinction between authorship and editorship is raised with Akerman's judgment that the author-editor Mercator produced a better work than the editor Ortelius. He goes on to introduce the question of authorship with reference to the Ptolemaic corpus, which was so extensively revised and augmented in various editions that the work of the original author almost totally disappears. In the Economic Atlas of Ontario, a product of the 19605, the roles of editors and authors in shaping content were almost merged. In the Historical Atlas of Canada, where the roles of editors and authors were fairly well separated, each plate became a minor essay in its own right, a situation which granted a much greater role to 'authors' of maps. As was clearly articulated in all three Atlas papers, this plate-author autonomy posed a far larger and more complex task for the editors. However the question of the crediting of authors for their work when plates were extensively reworked or sections combined emerged as a problem. Finally, the question of the separation of content-editing and production-editing becomes apparent with the modern atlases. Dean, in describing the production of text portions of the plates for the Historical Atlas of Canada, demonstrates how complex the productionediting can be for a large atlas, while Harris and Holdsworth concentrate on the many issues and 'political' conflicts raised by the shaping of content in their respective volumes. The contemporary problem of financial constraints in producing atlases and the circumstances of the map/atlas publishing business are not unique, as Pedley's eighteenth century examples demonstrate. Despite the many differences between the early topographic atlas and the modern thematic atlas, the lesson to be read is that many of the editing requirements remain constant: a structural framework, effective cartographic design, clarity, consistency, accuracy, and sufficent funding. Taken together, the essays in this Conference volume highlight several significant issues in atlas historiography and editing history, and suggest lines for further research. They will undoubtedly serve to
xvi / Joan Winearls stimulate an interest in the atlas as the vital point of intersection between maps and books. In conclusion, I wish to thank the Editorial Conference committee and particularly Patricia Fleming for the splendid local arrangements, and John Grant as Chair and Treasurer of the committee for much other assistance in mounting the Conference. Gerry Bentley, as returning Chair, played a pivotal role on the publishing side, and Gillian Fenwick was of great assistance with the editing. We are as usual greatly indebted to the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRCC), without whose assistance we would not have been able to mount the Conference. The University of Toronto Library was most generous in its support for the Conference and the exhibit 'The Atlas as a Book/ We are as always very grateful to University College for major support, as well as to the Department of Geography which among other things also mounted an exhibition on the newly launched Volume n of the Historical Atlas of Canada. We would also like to acknowledge the support of the Faculty of Information Studies, the Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology, the University of Toronto Press, the Bibliographical Society of Canada, and the Friends of the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library. Graduate students Dorn Van Dommelen, Sara Mcdowell, and Marija Dalbello-Lovric most ably assisted with the social events and registration. I would particularly like to thank the chairs and commentators of the sessions: John Warkentin, Ralph Ehrenberg, Bob Magocsi, Ed Dahl, Janis Langins, Deryck Holdsworth, and Matthew Edney for their useful comments and for keeping everything moving. In the production of the camera-ready copy and the publishing of the papers I am as usual eternally grateful to Gwen Peroni for her superb work and to the University of Toronto Press and particularly Suzanne Rancourt and Karen Boersma. Finally I would like to thank the seven speakers for their important contributions and encouragement for this relatively new area of research - the editing and production of early and modern atlases. NOTES i
A conference on early atlases was held at the Center for the Book, Library of Congress in 1984, but the papers have not been published. However, growing numbers of bibliographies such as C. Koeman's Atlantes Neerlandid (Amsterdam: Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, 1967-85)
Introduction / xvii for Dutch atlases, and M. Pastoureau's At las franqais du xvie-xviie siecles (Paris: Bibliotheque Nationale, 1984) attest to an increasing interest in the importance of early atlases. 2 However, recent issues of the annual Bibliographica Cartogmphica (Munich, K.G. Saur, 1974- , the main international bibliography of cartography, indicate that less than ten percent of the current literature has been devoted to atlases.
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Editing Early and Historical Atlases
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JAMES R. A K E R M A N
1 From Books with Maps to Books as Maps: The Editor in the Creation of the Atlas Idea
Atlases and Editors Putting a binding around a bundle of unsorted and disorganized maps does not make it an atlas; all atlases worthy of the name are structured according to some geographical scheme or purpose. That is to say, an atlas is distinguished from a mere collection of maps by an editor's guiding hand; an atlas is a map of maps, and its editor a metacartographer. The editor's primary role in the creation of an atlas is not to draw maps but to make sense of them through the logic or structure1 of the entire book. This paper examines the origin of the atlas as a distinct cartographic form by tracing the emergence of the atlas editor. A good starting point is Wood's assertion that the atlas is essentially a narrative form of cartography, something that is inevitably read as a story because the maps therein are presented serially within the familiar confines of the bound volume. The most effective atlases, he argues, are usually those whose editors are most sensitive to this narrative propensity.2 I agree with most of this, but is a narrative reading inevitable? Psychologically, it is probably true that when presented with any random sequence of images, people are inclined to read a narrative into the sequence, especially when it is presented in a context (such as a published book) that lends it authority. If, however, the maps are truly 'thrown' together randomly, there can be no meaning to the 'narrative' so generated; if no thought is given to an atlas's structure, there can be no 'story' - or at any rate none reproducible by a significant number of readers. The crucial difference between an atlas and a 'not-atlas' lies in the presence of an identifiable logic in the way maps in a book are selected, designed, and arranged: the structure of an atlas, or what we
4 / James R. Akerman might call the map of the book. In general, people read an atlas narratively because someone has consciously or unconsciously produced within its structure a narrative or, preferably, an 'exposition/ because most atlases illustrate and argue geographical ideas rather than tell tales. Good modern atlases are developed painstakingly precisely because they are an investment of the time, reputation, and fortune of their cartographers, editors, publishers, and sponsors. They acquire by this investment - by publication - authority; and if they are widely used, during their currency they become a normative description of the social, physical, and chronological territory they have staked out. Thus, with the investment of editorial authority comes editorial responsibility. I will argue here that the history of the atlas idea began with the ascendance of cartographic editors as authorities consciously responsible for structuring pre-existing or newly created maps into useful and meaningful compendia. Historically, an atlas is distinguished from other sets of maps, in or out of books, by its usual possession of three defining traits: (i) the dominance of graphic elements (particularly maps) over textual elements; (2) the rough uniformity of map format, design, and presentation throughout the work; and (3) the standardization (generally), from copy to copy in each edition, of the composition and arrangement of atlas components. This tripartite definition is best seen as an ideal rather than as a hard and fast rule, since many atlases before the age of mass, machine production fell in some way short of these traits, particularly the third.3 Taken together, however, these characteristics are useful guides for an examination of the early relationship between cartographic editors and the sets of maps they produced leading to the emergence of the atlas form. These three defining traits are easily perceived in the structure of most modern atlases, whose editors actively pursue them and even revel in their achievement of a striking and successful atlas structure. The publishers of The State of the World Atlas, for example, claim on its dust jacket that the atlas 'provides a startling perspective on the cost of pursuing state interests, the destruction of the environment and the erosion of human rights.' The 'startling perspective' is the book's series of boldly coloured choropleth world maps and cartograms, each of which, with the minimum amount of explanatory text, portrays the geographical distribution of population growth, industrial power, or arm sales on the same political base map. These arresting maps com-
From Books with Maps to Books as Maps / 5 mand the attention of the general reader for whom they are intended, and the repetition of their format and design throughout strengthens the impact and authority of the editors' left-leaning exposition.4 The hallmarks of atlas structure are less obvious but present nevertheless in a typical manuscript portolan 'atlas' (a late medieval book of sea charts used by sailors based in the Mediterranean Sea) from the fifteenth century, and made probably by the Venetian chartmaker Giacomo Giroldi, perhaps around 1440 (Figure i.i).5 Its six charts on five vellum folios are durably bound with wooden boards covered with tooled leather, and its maps were drawn uniformly with considerable care and specifically for the book format. The book's composition is also 'standard' in several important respects. The charts cover the same waters and coasts - the Mediterranean Sea, Black Sea, and Atlantic coasts of Europe and North Africa - covered by dozens of other portolan charts and atlases made in the fourteenth through sixteenth centuries. In fact, this atlas is very much like six others attributed to Giroldi, each with five or six charts, suggesting that he produced many more, perhaps according to an established plan that he followed for two or more decades.6 Giroldi's atlases come as close to a standard 'edition' of maps as any products of the manuscript era could. But was he an atlas editor? This is a question without a definite answer. The originality of Giroldi's own editorial contribution to the structure of his atlases was minimal. The composition of the atlas differs little from several atlases made by another chartmaker who worked in Venice, Pietro Vesconte, more than a century earlier. His atlases' geographical vision, moreover, was restricted to the usual horizon of portolan charts. His geography differed marginally from that of his contemporaries, but there is no attempt to use the book to relate distinctive ideas or to order geographical knowledge. Judging by the location of book plates and other marks, recent owners of the book have not even agreed which was its intended front or back - or for that matter its top or bottom. The binding gives no clues, and, typical of the portolan style, the charts are read by constantly turning them, without any convention determining the alignment and placement of toponyms. Giroldi's status as editor is further diminished by the fact that the Newberry atlas is unsigned,7 like so many other portolan atlases and charts; the identity (and authority) of the creator of the work adds nothing to the value of the representation to the consumer.
6 / James R. Akerman
Figure 1.1 The British Isles and Atlantic Europe, chart 2 (folios zv-yi), in an anonymous atlas attributed to Giacomo Giroldi [Venice?, ca. 1440]. Courtesy of the Edward E. Ayer Collection, the Newberry Library.
From Books with Maps to Books as Maps / 7 Atlas making has a complicated and possibly ancient pre-history, and because of the existence of books like Giroldi's no book has clear title to 'the first atlas.' The prevailing scholarly wisdom dates the emergence of the modern atlas idea around 1570. For in that year Abraham Ortelius (1527-98), citizen of Antwerp, map colourist, scholar, and dealer in geographical literature, maps, and antiquities published his Theatrum orbis terrarum.8 Because there were obvious precedents, especially in the two decades before 1570,1 am inclined to credit the atlas idea to his generation rather than to him personally, but this relatively modest folio of sixty-nine maps on fifty-three sheets is given pride of place with considerable justification. There are documentary suggestions that Ortelius had spent at least a decade planning the Theatrum and selecting and editing maps for it from previously published works or from drafts supplied by his friends and correspondents.9 These he had engraved and printed to very high standards at a uniform size and format, each introduced by text written especially for the atlas. The Theatrum was, in short, arguably the most painstakingly compiled and thoroughly planned edition of maps of the world yet completed. Conscious of his role as editor rather than simply author of his maps, Ortelius compiled and published in the atlas an extensive author catalogue ('Catalogus auctorum tabularum geographicarum') acknowledging the sources of his maps. This apparent act of self-effacement actually put him in the centre of the work; in downplaying his credentials as cartographer, Ortelius established his credentials as meta-cartographer. The Theatrum was also a commercial and critical success, head and shoulders above previous collections of maps,10 which stoked public interest in edited books of maps and inspired emulation by Ortelius's colleagues and competitors. The emergence of the atlas, or the purposefully structured book of maps, during the last third of the sixteenth century was in one respect the creation of a new cartographic form, half map and half book; in another respect it was the transformation of older forms and traditions. To comprehend this transformation, it is imperative to trace the lineage of the modern atlas back to the earliest portolan atlases and to other medieval book forms to which maps were crucial. But we must in the end return to the last third of the sixteenth century for the true source of the atlas idea. Only then did editors begin consistently to take direct control of the structure of map books and assert by publication that a particular selection and arrangement of maps was, in its own right meaningful and normative. This was a transformation from books of (or with) maps to books as maps.
8 / James R. Akerman The Emergence of the Atlas Editor: Two Traditional Forms and Their Transformation The use of cartographic illustration in books of various types is an ancient practice confined by no means to European traditions.11 The primary sources of the atlas, however, are more easily discerned in illustrated manuscript and printed books of various types manufactured in the west from the fourteenth through sixteenth centuries. These include portolan atlases, cosmographical and astronomical treatises,12 island-books (or fso/flra)/3 travel accounts/4 pilot books/5 universal chronicles/6 and patriotic histories.17 Of these traditions, the portolan atlas and the Ptolemaic atlas have left the longest and richest historical record, and provide a good basis for tracing the emergence of the independent atlas editor. Ptolemaic Atlases
The early fifteenth-century reintroduction of the second-century geographical manual, or Geographia, of Claudius Ptolemy to the Latin west was one of the most important events in the emergence of modern geography and cartography. Reinforced by its authority as a Classical text, the Geographia's excursions into geographical theory and its explanations of geometric methods of map projection and map compilation helped put the new science of geography on a firm theoretical and mathematical basis/8 We are concerned here, however, with the considerable influence of its cartographic component, the most comprehensive set of maps depicting the eastern hemisphere in existence in the fifteenth century. We do not know whether the set of twentyseven Ptolemaic maps (one world map, ten of Europe, four of Africa, and twelve of Asia) that circulated in numerous manuscript copies and printed editions during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries can be linked directly to the second-century Alexandrian astronomer and mathematician. It is still undecided whether the Geographia is a truly ancient text written by Ptolemy himself in roughly the form fifteenthcentury scholars received it, or a Byzantine compilation of two or more texts attributable (at least in part) to Ptolemaic commentators/9 There were in fact at least two different Greek versions of 'Ptolemy' circulating in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, one (the so-called Arecension) having the twenty-seven maps familiar to the Latin west, the other (the B-recension) covering the same territory in sixty-five or more smaller maps. Thirty-eight of fifty-one recorded Greek manu-
From Books with Maps to Books as Maps / 9 scripts had no maps at all. The variance among fifteenth-century Latin manuscripts was considerably smaller: forty-one of fifty-eight included maps, all of which were based on the A-recension.20 Even so, it was conceivable in 1475 to print the first edition of the Geographia without maps, although this was followed in rapid succession by three editions (1477, 1478, and 1482) that included maps. By any measure, Ptolemy's Geographia was the dominant compendium of cartography for almost a century after the first edition with maps was published in Bologna in 1477. Of 222 maps printed in the fifteenth century recorded by Campbell, slightly more than half (117), were versions of one of Ptolemy's twenty-seven maps.21 In all, thirtytwo editions of 'Ptolemy' with maps were published between 1477 and 1600. Demand for it at the end of the sixteenth century was still sufficient to support five such editions in the 159OS.22 Further evidence of Ptolemy's lingering authority among Renaissance geographers was the homage bestowed on him by the editors of the great modern atlases of the late sixteenth century. In the 15705, for example, the Roman map seller Antonio Lafreri bound his atlases, made to the order of his customers from maps in his stock, with a title page declaring that the maps contained therein were 'collected and arranged according to the order of Ptolemy.'23 Ortelius also declared his arrangement of the maps in the Theatrum orbis terrarum to be in the Ptolemaic pattern. The enduring authority of the Ptolemaic corpus of twenty-seven maps rested on its geographical breadth and global balance, which in the century before the Columbian Encounter far exceeded that of any contemporary source that could be compared to it. In matters of detail, however, it was noticeably flawed even in the fifteenth century. For those who understood its teachings the Geographia was as much a catalyst for new mapping as it was a geographic canon.24 For Eisenstein, who writes of the printing press as a catalyst for scientific renewal, the publication of and response to the Geographia is a key example of how the early scramble to print revered classical texts inspired revisions and corrections that in the end undermined established authority.25 For Grafton, too, 'Ptolemy' was a geographic 'canon' rocked by the shock of discoveries beyond the waters washing Europe.26 New maps, or tabulae modernae, were added to manuscript versions of Ptolemy well before it was ever put into print and decades before 1492. Sometime before 1428 a French Cardinal, Guillaume Fillastre, added a map of northern Europe by Claudius Clavus to a Ptolemaic codex in his possession, plugging the most obvious hole in the Ptolemaic description of Europe.27 More ambitious complements
io / James R. Akerman of tabulae modernae were added to manuscript versions made from the 14605 to the 14805 by Nicolaus Germanus, Henricus Martellus Germanus, Pietro del Massaio and Hugo Comminelli, and Francesco Berlinghieri. These became the models for tabulae modernae appearing in several early printed editions.28 Confined to maps of European regions, Palestine, and some urban views, these first sets of new maps were modest in scope and were offered modestly. They were anything but open challenges to the authority of the Alexandrian. Nicolaus Germanus, for example, felt obliged to write an apology of sorts for correcting Ptolemy in the manuscript copy he dedicated to his patron the Duke of Modena: I am not unaware, Most Illustrious Prince, that Ptolemy the Geographer depicted the earth with the greatest skill and the most thorough information, and that were we to attempt anything new in these studies, our work would incur the censure of many; for all those who examine this delineation of ours, contained in these maps ... especially if they are those who are ignorant of the art of geometry, and observe that it differs from that which Ptolemy set forth, will convict us forthwith of ignorance or of rashness. ... If those who are not altogether ignorant of geography or cosmography, and are in the habit of reading Ptolemy, will compare, with a calm mind, our picture with his, they will certainly think our picture worthy of some praise ... when they discover that we have in no particular departed from the intention of Ptolemy, although we have deviated a little from his picture.29
Consider also the tentative manner in which the tabulae modernae were presented in these late fifteenth-century copies: the old maps of Spain, Gaul, or Italy were never discarded, but retained their place in the Ptolemaic sequence, followed immediately by the new, alternative map. Until the middle decades of the sixteenth century neither editors nor publishers were prepared to undertake the printing of new large sets of maps in non-Ptolemaic contexts. The only exceptions to this rule before the 15405 were the cosmographic diagrams - arguably not maps - appearing in editions of astronomical texts like Sacrobosco, the small and highly schematic maps of islands appearing in the isolarii of Bartolommeo dalli Sonetti (Venice, 1485-86) and Benedetto Bordone (Venice, 1528), and the sets of city views, 75-100 in number, that appeared in the chronicles of Hartmann Schedel (the so-called Nuremberg Chron-
From Books with Maps to Books as Maps / 11 icle; 1493) and Jacopo da Bergamo Forest! (Venice, 1486). Half or more of the town views in the chronicles, however, were in large measure 'fantastic' stock images, bearing little or no resemblance to the towns they purported to represent. In the Nuremberg Chronicle these stock images were passed as depictions of up to seven different cities. Evidently, the demand for geographical illustration exceeded the ability of even the relatively well-capitalized publishers such as Anton Koberger (the publisher of the Nuremberg Chronicle) to obtain and prepare for the press adequate images drawn from life of places they wished to illustrate.30 Several non-Ptolemaic cosmographies and geographical manuals were published from the 15205 to the 15405. Of these, the Cosmographicus liber of Peter Apian (Antwerp, 1529) and the Rudimenta cosmographica of Johannes Honter (Kronstadt, 1542) were the most important. However, the cartographic content of Apian was limited to a few rudimentary diagrams, while Honter's numerically impressive 'atlas' of sixteen small woodcut maps attached to the back of his little book was topographically very schematic.31 The first significant step towards structural and editorial independence from Ptolemy within the Ptolemaic tradition was made by Martin Waldseemiiller, who compiled the maps for the 1513 Strasbourg edition of the Geographia.32 Waldseemiiller's twenty tabulae modernae include thirteen new renderings of European countries and German provinces, three maps of parts of Asia, two new African maps, and a map of the Atlantic and America. In apparent emphasis of its editorial independence from the twenty-seven traditional maps, his Supplementum modernior appears at the back of the work behind its own title page. It became the basis for sets of twenty-three new maps appearing in subsequent re-editions of the Strasbourg Ptolemy by Lorenz Fries (Lyon, 1525-41). Still larger sets of tabulae modernae by Sebastian Munster and Giacomo Gastaldi appeared in Basel and Venice editions after 1540, and culminated in the set of thirty-seven, based chiefly on earlier maps by Gastaldi, in the 1561 Venetian edition of Girolamo Ruscelli.33 This last set of new maps was the most geographically balanced of any yet published since the age of reconnaissance had begun. More than half its maps (seventeen) depicted non-European territories, evenly split between Africa, Asia, and America. While the sets of tabulae modernae added to the Geographia were becoming world atlases in their own right, the textual content of editions of Ptolemy was also becoming less and less Ptolemaic. Renaissance Humanism, of course, was much concerned with the preservation and distribution of Classical texts. The reputations of the earliest
12 / James R. Akerman editions of Ptolemy therefore rested on how faithfully they reproduced what was thought to be Ptolemy's original text and tables of coordinates, uncorrupted by intervening Latin editors. The 1507 Rome edition marks a subtle shift from this motivation. Its title page advertised that the Latin text of the eight books of the Geographia had been faithfully compared with the Greek archetype34; yet this edition was swollen to nearly twice the size of the two previous Rome editions (1478 and 1490) by a new geographical index to the Ptolemaic maps, a geometrical supplement to Ptolemy, and a modern survey of the countries of the world. By the 15403, it was impossible for Ptolemaic editors to ignore new geographical observations and methods.35 Accounts of American explorations had been well-publicized by such works as the Decades of Peter Martyr. New methods of land measurement based on triangulation had been described, and navigational techniques and instruments Ptolemy never dreamed of had made their way into the treatises of Peter Apian, Gemma Frisius, and others. The Geographia remained an important forum for the dissemination of geographical learning, but a critical edition of Ptolemy now demanded substantial annotation and augmentation, in which contemporary scholars played larger and more visible roles. The 1561 Venice edition (in Italian) includes a lengthy geographical survey by the volume's editor, Girolamo Ruscelli, to which tabulae modernae are appended, along with a discourse on geographical theory and methods by Giuseppe Moleto. Together these sections account for nearly half of the quarto volume, which approaches 800 pages in length. The status of Ruscelli and Moleto themselves is enhanced by acknowledgement of their contributions on the volume's title page as prominently as Ptolemy himself. In Minister's small folio edition of 1552, the new material accounts for 207 pages, against 174 for the original Ptolemaic material. In fact, about half of the space on those 174 pages is consumed by Miinster's annotations. Just as our Webster's Dictionary is no longer truly Noah Webster's work, so, by the middle of the sixteenth century, Ptolemy's Geography had become Ptolemy's in name only. The coup de gras for Ptolemy as the most authoritative compendium of regional description was the publication of world atlases in Italy and the Netherlands that acknowledged little or no direct debt to Ptolemy. One of the editors of these first independent world atlases was the Fleming, Gerard Mercator. A true renaissance man, versed in both the graphic and liberal arts, in his middle age he laid out for himself a monumental task that would consume the rest of his life. This was to be a massive cosmography comprising theology and cos-
From Books with Maps to Books as Maps / 13 mology, chronology, political history, genealogy, and geography both ancient and modern. The scheme was not entirely fulfilled, but he did manage in 1578 to publish an edition of Ptolemy that served as his ancient geography,36 before turning his full attention to his modern geography, which would become his Atlas (Duisburg, 1595). Relatively less attention has been paid to Mercator's own edition of Ptolemy than to the Atlas, but in two respects Mercator's Ptolemy symbolizes, perhaps as well as any work from this period, the passage to the modern atlas form. First, Mercator's interest in Ptolemy was clearly focussed on the maps. He titled the book Tabulae Geographicae Cl. Ptolemaei the maps of Claudius Ptolemy - not the geography of Claudius Ptolemy. And there are no traces here of the first seven books of the Geographia, only a brief preface of four pages, various emendations of Ptolemy's geographical tables (on the back of the maps), and a geographical index of twenty-five pages. Second, it is clear that Mercator considered the interest of the Ptolemaic map corpus to be purely historical. Mercator's 'Ptolemy' did not include any tabulae modernae in the strict sense of the term; its twenty-eighth map is Mercator's own depiction of the ancient Holy Land. In making the Ptolemaic maps historical Mercator rendered them conceptually as well as physically independent from the textual tradition from which they emerged. Simultaneously, Mercator disengaged the map corpus from the authority of Ptolemy, the geographer, and attached it to Mercator, the historical geographer. Freed from the Geographia, the maps took on a new life as components of historical atlases, in eight editions of Mercator's Ptolemy and from 1618 in four editions of Petrus Bertius's Theatri geographicae veteris (Geographia vetus), which combined these Ptolemaic maps with the maps from Abraham Ortelius's own historical atlas, the Parergon.37 As an atlas, Ptolemy's Geographia receded into history. The Portolan Atlas The so-called portolan charts and atlases of the thirteenth through seventeenth centuries are among the most studied and cherished of historic cartographic forms. The earliest surviving examples of these navigational charts and atlases (most typically showing the Mediterranean Sea, Black Sea, and adjacent Atlantic coasts of Europe and Africa) date from the late thirteenth century. In all, 180 have been recorded that can be definitively dated before 150038; several times that number of charts and atlases survive from the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, suggesting continued expansion of the market for them
14 / James R. Akerman (chiefly in southern Europe) before they were superseded by printed charts and atlases.39 Scholarly fascination with the portolan chart rests chiefly on its remarkable geographic accuracy; the image of the Mediterranean and adjacent seas presented by the so-called 'normal portolan'40 is instantly recognizable to modern eyes and defies the usual perception of medieval cartography as fantastic and wildly inaccurate. Scholarship also emphasizes that the 'normal portolan' changed very little over time, so that portolan chartmakers appear paradoxically both precocious and conservative.41 Scholars have been very much concerned with questions of the origins, sources, and uses of portolan charts, but have written little about the functional distinction between the single-sheet and atlas formats, or the characteristics and evolution of portolan atlases as books.42 Single-sheet portolan charts, usually showing all of the area of the normal portolan, were drawn on large sheets of vellum. These were stored as rolls, with the neck of the animal sometimes providing a convenient flap for a thong for securing the roll. Portolan atlases consisted of several smaller vellum sheets, folded once, with adjacent half-sheets mounted back to back, sometimes on intervening pieces of cardboard or wood. The sheets were joined at the spine and often bound in leather. Sixty-nine portolan atlases survive from the period to 1500, against 111 charts,43 but it is hard to infer from this the relative proportion of either format in actual production. The name 'portolan chart' comes from portolano ('port-book'), the Italian name for books of verbal sailing directions (known in English as 'pilot books' or 'rutters'), which guided sailors from port to port perhaps since ancient times. The association derives from the early assumption that the charts were based on the portolani and were made to accompany them. So few examples of sailing directions accompanied by charts have been discovered that this theory is generally discredited. It is more likely that the emergence of the charts had something to do with the appearance in the west of the navigational compass. Intersecting lattices of rhumb-lines representing compass bearings are among the most prominent features of most portolan charts. These suggest the usefulness of the charts in conjunction with compasses for voyages across the open sea, something for which sailing directions were particularly unsuitable.44 That portolan charts and atlases were developed originally for navigational purposes is undoubted. Ironically, however, probably most, if not all, the surviving examples never went to sea, but were instead used ashore as geographical references by the literate, wealthy,
From Books with Maps to Books as Maps / 15 and powerful. Their value as references for non-maritime users may in fact account for some functional separation between the atlas and single-chart formats. Much of the conservatism attributed to the portolan tradition rests on the slowness of the single-sheet charts to respond to obvious omissions from the European mariner's world during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries: such as Scandinavia, the Atlantic islands, and the West African coastline south of Cape Bojador. Campbell argues convincingly that both the limited range of the typical Mediterranean sailor and the limited size of the typical skins from which single portolan charts were made were factors in this conservatism. 'Though sections of vellum were sometimes joined to offer a larger surface, most charts used only one skin. For a fifteenth-century chartmaker to have incorporated the steadily growing western African coastline would have meant reducing the scale of the Mediterranean, the traditional heart and purpose of his chart/45 Chartmakers who specialized in the atlas format did not have these limitations. In their simplest form, portolan atlases were made by breaking up the area of the normal portolan into three or more sections, to which were sometimes added special maps on larger scales. Giroldi's atlas (ca. 1440), discussed at the outset, is typical; five of its six charts, drawn on the same scale, cover the Black Sea, the eastern Mediterranean, central Mediterranean, western Mediterranean (with Iberia and Morocco), and the Atlantic seaboard of Europe as far north as the British Isles; a sixth chart, on a larger scale, depicts the Adriatic Sea. Another atlas from the next century by Conte Hectomano Freducci (i533)46 is similarly structured. Four charts (one per sheet) cover the West African coast, the Western European coast, the western Mediterranean, and central Mediterranean; two charts appear on the fifth sheet (one on each page), the Black Sea and the eastern Mediterranean. All the charts on the Freducci atlas are on the same scale. Giroldi's emphasis on the Adriatic and Freducci's inclusion of the chart showing the West African coast reflect differences in their markets, local traditions, and house style. The six sheets in Giroldi's atlas are folded once, the fold bissecting the charts along a north-south line, and the leaves made by pasting the blank verso of each half-chart to the verso of half of the next chart. Freducci's five sheets are folded along east-west lines and the half-sheets mounted on cardboard. The charts in each atlas overlap one another geographically; Crete, for example, appears in both the central and the eastern Mediterranean charts in each atlas. Neither atlas was made by simple dissection (literally or figuratively) of the normal portolan; the charts stand to a certain extent on their own and
16 / James R. Akerman were made specifically for the atlas format. The structural and geographical differences between these two atlases are minor, but they indicate the kinds of choices the atlas form afforded portolan chartmakers. Indeed, three of the seven earliest surviving portolan atlases, attributed to Pietro Vesconte (active in the second and third decades of the fourteenth century), do not conform strictly to the classic model, and have an apparently propagandistic rather man navigational purpose. They were made to accompany copies of Marino Sanudo's Liber secretorum Fidelium Crucis, a tract calling for a crusade involving the conquest of Egypt. Two of these atlases include a world map, a map of Palestine, and views of Jerusalem and Acre.47 The so-called Catalan Atlas of 1375, made for King Pedro IV of Aragon by the Majorcan chartmakers Abraham and Jafuda Cresques, is nothing short of a world atlas.48 These instances indicate an early familiarity of non-mariners with portolan charts and their esteem for the chartmaker's skills as a geographic editor. Another apparent result of this cross-fertilization is the sole surviving atlas made by the Venetian, Andrea Bianco (1436). Among its ten charts are a planisphere or world map, a map of Scandinavia, an expanded Atlantic chart that included the Canaries and Azores, and, most intriguingly, a Ptolemaic world map.49 Little surprise, then, that in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries the portolan chartmaker was relied upon by an expanding cartographic market to compile books of maps providing a more complete picture of the world rocked by the 'shock of discovery/ It was after all, the chartmakers - not the Ptolemaic scholars - who recorded this information first and in the greatest detail, and who, employed as royal cosmographers and pilots-major,50 supervised the construction of revised global reference charts, atlases, and pilot books for the crowns of Spain, Portugal, France, and England. In terms of global balance and comprehensiveness, the best reference atlases of the early and middle decades of the sixteenth century were arguably the portolan-style atlases made by chartmakers in the service of western European royalty. The so-called 'Miller Atlas' (1519), ascribed to Lopo Homem, is among the finest examples of the Portuguese school of the sixteenth century, noted for its beauty, use of pictorial illustration, and expanded geographical scope. Its thirteen charts (on varying scales) on eleven sheets document the extent of Portuguese maritime knowledge around the world and mirror the interest of the state: the atlas takes its reader around southern Africa into the Indian Ocean and east to the China Sea; and westward past the
From Books with Maps to Books as Maps / 17 Azores to Brazil. Though Homem was in the service of the King of Portugal at the time, the atlas may have been made for a prospective Atlantic and Indian rival, Francis I of France.51 The lavishly executed Boke ofldrography, made by Jean Rotz in 1542,52 is the earliest surviving example of the charts and atlases of the Dieppe school, based in that Norman port, whose products date from 1542 to 1587. Like the 'Miller/ the Rotz atlas surveys the entire world - though in a westward motion starting from the west coast of America and ending on the east coast of America. Its twelve charts - all, except for a world chart, drawn on the same scale - are rich in iconography illustrating major ports and inland cities, wildlife, and native inhabitants. It, too, was made for the sovereign of another state, England's Henry VIII, perhaps as an elaborate job application. The magnificent atlases of the Portuguese and Dieppe schools are in very close conformity with the modern atlas idea. Their makers, mindful of impressing their patrons, developed florid and distinctive styles which they carried uniformly throughout each atlas. The books were introduced by dedications, calendars, and on some occasions text, and attention was paid to the arrangement of the charts, which followed the routes of theoretical voyagers outward-bound from Atlantic Europe. It is nevertheless important to remember that, however aesthetically pleasing or politically significant these atlases may have been, as single manuscript works, not very many eyes saw them. We should not unduly amplify their influence on the popular taste for atlases, especially in relation to their more widely distributed counterparts. Italy continued to produce more pedestrian portolan charts and atlases apparently aimed at both the working seaman and the urbane reader. Italian portolan atlases were restrained in their use of iconography and conformed more nearly to traditional styles of presentation and formats. This stylistic restraint was well-suited to greater output, perhaps from house templates,53 but it did not imply geographical conservatism. Vesconte Maggiolo and his son Giovanni, Genoan chartmakers who were active 1511-49, made modest-looking atlases that nevertheless reflected increasing knowledge of America.54 Bartolomeo (Bartomeu) Olives, a Majorcan from the prolific Olives (Oliva) family, who established himself in Messina, produced at least five atlases in the 15605-805 that ventured into and across the Atlantic.55 And perhaps the best known of all Italian chartmakers of this period, the Venetian, Battista Agnese, produced probably hundreds of atlases - more than sixty survive - from the 15405 to the 15605. Some of Agnese's atlases made after 1545 make no pretense of
i8 / James R. Akerman having strictly navigational uses. They include continental, regional, and island maps based on Ptolemy, isolarii, and other models.56 The sheer number of atlases produced in Italy during the sixteenth century points to a well established demand for them on both land and sea. Agnese's atlases, and perhaps those of others, should be seen as general reference atlases intended for markets similar to those reached north of the Alps by printed cosmographies, such as Miinster and Honter, whose maps were similar in size and detail. If so, the place of manuscript atlases in that portion of the Italian market undoubtedly received a severe blow as the Italian trade in printed land maps gathered steam, culminating in the production, during the decades from 1560 to 1580, of the world atlases of printed maps made to the order of the customers. The evolution of portolan atlases during the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries, was thus very much like that of the their contemporaries, the Ptolemaic atlases. Working from a standard geographical content and design, each evolved into complex and esteemed cartographic traditions that absorbed and disseminated the geographical revelations of their time. By the mid-sixteenth century, each had well-established positions in the cartographic and geographic marketplace. These positions, however, were about to be assaulted by a new sort of printed book - like them, devoted to the presentation of the most recent maps, and yet something genuinely new. An Emergent Cartographic Form: From Illustrated Book to Atlas Though we have seen that there was some interaction between portolan and Ptolemaic editors, until the last third of the sixteenth century, they remained practitioners of parallel traditions: one maritime and practical in inspiration, primarily graphic, and entirely manuscript; the other scholarly and mathematical, as much textual as graphic, and (from 1475) printed. There was, indeed, no standard term for an atlas to distinguish it from other types of books. Books called 'cosmography/ 'geography/ or 'chronicle' did not necessarily have maps, and the few truly map-dominated books of the mid-sixteenth century did not adopt names easily applied to varying types of cartography. Landtafeln ["land maps'],57 typi chorographici ['regional maps'],58 civitatum [cities],59 and plantz, pourtraitz, et descriptions60 are contentspecific names. Plainly, a sea atlas could not be called landtafeln', neither could civitatum be anything but a collection of urban representations. Moreover, since these names were plural, they emphasized the
From Books with Maps to Books as Maps / 19 multiplicity of the maps within each work, rather than the work's unity as a book. Portolan atlases remained mostly unnamed. The names applied to books of maps after 1570 were, in contrast, most often both singular and generic. A 'theatre' could be a general world atlas, as in Abraham Ortelius's Theatrum orbis terrarum (Antwerp, 1570), an atlas of France by Maurice Bouguereau (Le Theatre frangois (Tours, 1595)), or John Speed's Theatre of the Empire of Great Britain (London, 1611). Both Cornelis De Jode's world atlas, Speculum orbis terrarum (Antwerp, 1578) and Lucas Jansz Waghenaer's sea atlas, Speighel der Zeevaerdt (Leiden, 1584-85) were 'mirrors/ A 'treasury' might contain land maps, in the case of Barent Langenes's Caert-Thresoor (Leiden, 1598), or the sea charts of Waghenaer's Thresoor der Zeevaerdt (Leiden, 1592). Such naming conventions are signs of the emergence of the atlas form. In emphasizing the singular whole over the plural parts, names like 'atlas' and 'theatre' shifted authority from the cartographer of individual maps to the cartographic editor (or metacartographer). There is general agreement that the term 'atlas' was coined by Mercator, who wrote in the introduction to his Atlas sive cosmographicae meditationes de fabrica mundi et fabricati figura (1595) that the name honours an ancient Mauritanian king and astronomer by that name, said to have been 'the first among men' to have asserted the cosmological importance of spheres.61 We know this Atlas better as one of the leaders of the revolt of the Titans against the Olympians, vanquished by Zeus and condemned to hold the Earth (or Heavens) aloft.62 It is this image of Atlas that appears on so many seventeenthcentury atlas frontispieces and title pages. Keuning thought these representations to be simple misapprehensions of Mercator's meaning, mistaking a god for a man,63 but I think the misapprehension is his own. Mercator's training in the classical humanities was extensive, and he must have been aware that the Atlas story had many versions which make him a god, a man, or something in between. It is likely that Mercator found the image of the scholar-king personally emblematic and more easily reconciled with his own devout Christianity. The Atlas who appears on the title page to Mercator's Atlas seems mortal enough; he sits in loosely draped clothing grappling with a globe and measuring it with dividers. Yet it seems also that Mercator had embraced a metaphor - Atlas as beholder and/or holder of the cosmos that was already current in the last two decades of Mercator's life, and which was inclusive of the god-atlas. He almost certainly had seen the rendering of the Titanic Atlas that appeared on Antonio Lafreri's title
20 / James R. Akerman page of ca. 1575, which introduced Lafreri's composite atlases. Like 'theatre/ the appeal of 'atlas' as a metaphor for a book of maps rested on its reference to classical learning and in its expression of the vision and comprehension of the World such a book provides. The term's eventual adoption (by the end of the seventeenth century) as the generally accepted generic term for a book of maps may rest on the direct reference to geography and cosmography embedded in the Atlas story, as well as Mercator's reputation, exploited by the seventeenthcentury publishers of successors to the original 1595 Atlas.6"4 Webster's defines an atlas simply as 'a bound collection of maps/65 and whether or not substantial textual accompaniment is required, the main emphasis in the ideal atlas should be its graphic and, more specifically, its cartographic content. The line between too little text and too much is, however, not a precise one, and in our time it is sometimes the subject of vitriolic debate in the review literature. One recent reviewer complained, for example, that the Atlas of Irish History is actually 'a short history of Ireland, which includes many illustrative maps, charts, and graphs. This distinction is important, because the maps appear to have been designed to support the theme of the text's subsections rather than the reverse.'66 We might be inclined to dismiss this as wasted rhetoric over a silly matter of semantics. After all, the important test of any reference book is how effectively it serves its audience; the ends justify the means. But in tracing the emergence of the atlas as an historical phenomenon, the question of balance between map and text is essential. The line between the geographical textbook and the atlas has never been firmly drawn, nor should it be; but one of the things that set the books of Ortelius, Mercator, and their late sixteenth-century contemporaries apart from, say, the heavily textual mid-sixteenth century editions of Ptolemy's Geography was their adoption of the look of portolan atlases, their commitment to graphic description over verbal. Raw numbers tell part of this story. I have calculated a map/text index for a range of fifteenth- and sixteenth-century printed cartographically illustrated books (Table i.i).6y These data show no steady increase over time within established book traditions towards greater proportional use of maps at the expense of text. Among Ptolemaic atlases, for example, the map text index fluctuates wildly from edition to edition, but remains mostly under 0.5. The mid-sixteenth century editions published in Venice and Basel are actually proportionally less cartographic than the Rome and Ulm editions of the 14705 and 14805. Similarly, the Isolario of Bartolomeo dalli Sonetti (1485 or 1486) has an
From Books with Maps to Books as Maps / 21 T A B L E 1.1
Map/Text Indexes for Selected Printed Cartographically Illustrated Books and Atlases to 1600 Author and /or editor Description or short title
Date
Map pages
Ptolemy (Rome) Ptolemy (Ulm) Bartolommeo, [isolario] Schedel, 'Nuremberg Chronicle' Breydenbach, Peregrinationes Ptolemy (Rome) Ptolemy (Venice) Apian, Cosmographicus liber Bordone, [isolario] Glareanus, ... Geographia liber Honter, Rudimenta cosmographica Mela/Solinus, ed. Miinster Ptolemy (Venice) Stumpf, Landtafeln Ptolemy (Basel) Lazius, ... Provin. Austriae Guicciardini, ... Paesi Bassi Apian, Bairische Landtafeln Ballino, [atlas of cities] Ortelius, Theatrum orbis terrarum Porcacchi, L'isole piufamose Belleforest, Cosmographie, vol. 1 Braun & Hogenberg, Civitates, bk. 1 de Jode, Speculum orbis terrarum Ptolemy, ed. Mercator (Cologne) Saxton, England Waghenaer, Speighel der Zeevaerdt Sanuto, Geografia [dell' Africa] Waghenaer, Thresoor der Zeevaerdt Bouguereau, Le Theatre francois Mercator, Atlas, pars altera [3rd pt] Wytfliet, America Langenes, Caert-Thresoor Quad, Geographisch Handtbuch
1478 1482 ca. 1485-6 1493 1490 1507-8 1511 1524 1528 1528 1542 1543 1548 1548 1552 1561 1567 1568 1569 1570 1572 1577 1577 1578 1578 1579 1584-85 1588 1592 1594 1595 1597 1598 1600
54 64 51 116 14 69 57 20 49 8 28 10 123 16 108 24 30 50 102 106 15 195 118 131 53 68 98 24 79 32 68 38 169 164
Text pages
136 167 60 429 175 274 119 84 102 47 329 224 523 0 288 112 310 1 71 117 110 1176
90 142 38 0 105 296 206 53 71 197 665 164
Map/text index
0.40 0.38 0.85 0.27 0.08 0.25 0.48 0.24 0.48 0.17 0.09 0.04 0.24
0.38 0.21 0.10 50.00 1.44 0.91 0.14 0.17 1.31 0.92 1.39
0.93 0.08 0.38 0.61 0.96 0.19 0.25 1.00
index (0.85) that far exceeds sixteenth-century isolarii. Still, it is easy to recognize a distinct cluster of books published around and after 1570 given over primarily to maps. Chronologically and conceptually, this point of departure is best marked by the publication in 1548 in Zurich of Johannes Stumpf's Landtafeln, consisting of a title page (no other text) and twelve maps on
22 / James R. Akerman eight sheets; of which nine concern Switzerland (one general map and eight regional maps on different scales).68 These maps had been designed, however, for Stumpf's lavish Swiss chronicle published in the same year. Stumpf's publisher, Christoph Froschauer, evidently saw the maps' potential in the Swiss market as a separate publication. This judgement was confirmed by demand which sustained three further editions of the separate atlas by 1574. Twenty years later a Bavarian counterpart to this atlas, the Bairische Landtafeln, was published by the mathematician Philipp Apian (Ingolstadt, 1568). It, too, originated in a larger work - Apian's survey of Bavaria commissioned by Duke Albrecht V, completed during 1554-61. The resulting map was deemed too large and inconvenient for practical use, and the Duke ordered Apian to "make it smaller, put it in a special portfolio, and publish it.'69 Hence an atlas of twenty-four sheets was published that could be disbound and assembled as a single wall-map of Bavaria, plus an index map, accompanied by only one page of text and a title page. By this time the compactness and convenience of separately bound book of maps was also appreciated by Italian map consumers and map sellers. The oldest survivor among the so-called Italian atlases made-to-order may have been assembled in 1565. Strictly speaking, these were not published works, since each of them was assembled according to the whims of the purchaser from whatever maps sellers in Venice or Rome had on hand. More than seventy of these composite atlases survive, dating from the 15605 through the 8os, the representatives of an apparently common trade practice and of the growing interest in print and map collecting in Italy.70 Italian composite atlases usually lacked text, but most atlases made since have some amount of text. Ortelius's Theatrum orbis terrarum and most of the other atlases made between 1570 and 1600 were approximately fifty percent text (see again Table 1.1). In the next century, the encyclopedic world atlases of the houses of Blaeu and Hondius-Jansson were no less atlases for their inclusion of huge textual components of regional history and geography, which in some volumes accounted for ninety percent of their pages. During the steady development and enlargement of the Blaeu Atlas Novus (from a two-volume work having about 200 maps in the 16305 to a twelve-volume work having about 600 maps in the i66os), the acquisition of new cartographic material (not textual material) dictated the publication of new volumes. In 1654, for example, a fifth volume with maps of Scotland and Ireland was added to the Blaeu atlas because (and only after) Joan Blaeu had succeeded in obtaining and engraving the manuscript maps of Timothy
From Books with Maps to Books as Maps / 23 Pont (surveyed 1583-96) and Robert and James Gordon (compiled in the 16305 and i64os).71 Volume six was created and published in the next year primarily as a platform for Father Martini's maps of China, brought to Joan Blaeu's attention upon the Jesuit's return to Rome in i65i.72 In the end, the dominance of maps over text in early atlases is not something that can be easily quantified. It was the inferior editorial position of text in relation to cartography - not the simple abandonment of text - that set the work of the Blaeu's late sixteenth-century predecessors apart from what preceded them and from contemporary illustrated books. The evolution of map printing technology was another factor in encouraging the development of map-dominated books. Basically two technologies were available to the early modern cartographic printer: woodcut, whereby a block of wood was cut away to produce a printing surface in relief; and copper engraving (or less often etching), whereby the image to be printed was cut into the polished surface of a copperplate. The two processes had distinct advantages and disadvantages for printing maps for books.73 Letters from movable type, like woodcut images, were printed from a surface raised in relief. Woodcut maps and type could be printed simultaneously on the same sheet of paper on the same press, and hence it was relatively easy to compose complex and visually interesting pages mixing text and woodcut maps in varying amounts, as in the Nuremberg chronicle or Bordone's Isolario. Woodcut maps were thus perfectly suited for use in illustrated but still highly textual books. The copperplate medium, on the other hand, allowed the printing of highly detailed maps that required sharp delineation and the precise marking of hundreds of topographical features and localities. Copperplate maps were, moreover, easily corrected and updated and allowed a wider range of symbolic and pictorial expression. By the middle of the sixteenth century, copperplate technology had become the preferred approach of Italian and Flemish map publishers. But its use required an adjustment in the way maps were incorporated into books. Since copperplate printing was an intaglio process, whereby the printer's ink was applied to recesses on the plate and imprinted under high pressure, copper-engraved maps had to be printed (on a different press) in a separate step from the text. Copper-engraved maps could not easily be combined with type on the same page; and it was rarely tried.74 This was not a problem for Italian composite atlases, since these were essentially textless bound collections of maps. The publishers of Ptolemaic atlases, however, had to confront it, since the Eighth Book
24 / James R. Akerman of the Geographia was, according to tradition, a written accompaniment to the Ptolemaic maps. In the Ulm (1482 and 1486) and Strasbourg (1513 and after) editions, containing woodcut maps, the appropriate portion of the Eighth Book appeared on the backside of each folio map sheet, on the first and sometimes the fourth of the four pages made by folding once a standard sheet of paper for binding into a book.75 The printers of the early copperplate editions of Ptolemy (Bologna, 1477; Rome, 1478,1490, and 1507-8) and Francesco Berlinghieri's Geographia (Florence, 1482)/6 however, apparently struggled with this technical problem. The backsides of their maps were left blank, and text was removed to another part of the volume. But by the middle of the sixteenth century, at least some Italian printers, including those who produced the quarto editions of Ptolemy in Venice after 1548, were able to print text on the backside of copperplate maps. The usual structure of what we might call the Ortelian or Flemish type folio atlas that developed after 1570 thus seems to be the result of a technical compromise (Figure 1.2). As in the Ulm and Rome editions of Ptolemy, the Ortelian map was typically printed on the inside two pages of a four-page folio. Following the model of the early printed Ptolemy editions, text was printed on the back of the map sheet - again, on what became, when the sheet was folded, the first page (preceding the map) and the fourth page (following the map). Each textual passage in the Theatrum provides a geographical and historical synopsis of the region or regions on the map contained in the folio, probably cribbed from other topographical works. Its content does not determine the content of the associated map, but rather is determined by it. The length of the textual passages was strictly limited by the space available on the back of the folio map. Indeed, it might even be argued that text was provided not out of any imperative of substance, but out of abhorrence of the visual vacuum so many blank sheets on the back of maps would create. This was the formula adopted more or less by Braun & Hogenberg, de Jode, Waghenaer, Bouguereau, and Quad (Table 1.2). Mercator used prose in a more limited way, preferring in many cases to introduce his maps with lists that enumerate but do not describe the places and regions contained in the enclosed map. Saxton's atlas of England and Wales included no text. Others still (Porcacchi, Belieforest, Sanuto, Wytfliet, and Langenes) had very substantial textual components, and did not at all correspond to the Ortelian model in this respect. Editors of copperplate atlases in succeeding generations would use more or less text as they preferred, sometimes, as in the case of Blaeu,
From Books with Maps to Books as Maps / 25
Figure 1.2 Abraham Ortelius, Theatrum orbis terrarum (Antwerp: Aegid. Coppens Diest, 1570) showing the typical layout of late sixteenth-century atlases: one copy is open to the map of the British Isles; the other to the descriptive text on the page preceding (and on the back of the left side of) the map. Courtesy of the Newberry Library (General Collection) and the Edward E. Ayer Collection, the Newberry Library.
including almost ten pages of text for every cartographic one. Almost all shared, however, the expedient front/back segregation of map and text that kept the maps free and clear of typeset text blocks and both physically and conceptually central to the structure of the book. Towards Uniformity Perhaps because it was faced with overwhelming competition from the north, the Italian practice of making composite atlases flickered out by the end of the sixteenth century, though composite atlas making reappeared during the copperplate era under varying economic, political, and legal pressures. As late as the early nineteenth century, British map sellers still issued collections of maps in odd sizes and from a variety of publishers in this way. The sixteenth-century Italian phenomenon is most significant in this context as hard evidence that
26 / James R. Akerman TABLE 1.2
Cartographic and Textual Elements in Selected Printed Map Sets and Atlases, 1570-1600 Author/editor, title/description
Date
Cartographic/textual elements
Ortelius, Theatrum orbis terrarum
1570
folio maps/lp. text on verso; 13pp. introductory text; author catalogue; index 30 half-page maps/set in text at head of chapters; index 1/2,1, and folio maps/blank on verso, some with text on verso, some set in text; table of maps folio maps/l-2pp. text on verso; 18pp. intro. text; 21pp. author catalogue at back of book; descriptive index folio maps (1 single-page map)/2pp. text on verso; lip. intro. text; author catalogue; map index folio maps/l-2pp. text on verso; 7pp. intro. text; 30pp. geographical index folio maps/verso blank; Ip. geographical index and table of maps folio maps/2pp. text on verso 60pp. intro. text and tables; table of contents; text refers to associated maps folio maps/verso blank; 296pp. introductory and substantive text; geographical index 2-page fold-out charts/blank on verso; text page opposite; coastal profiles set in text pages or cover entire pages; table of maps folio maps/2pp. text on verso, supplemented by adjacent pages; 15pp. introductory text; binder's instructions re composition and arrangement of maps folio maps/0-2pp. text on verso; 45pp. introductory text; geographical index folio maps/verso blank; 197pp. introductory and substantive text; table of maps 1-page maps (oblong quarto)/opposite and among substantive text-pages; table of maps folio maps/2pp. text on verso; map index; mapsheet numbers printed on accompanying text
Porcacchi, L'isole piufamose 1572 Belleforest, Cosmographie, vol.1
1575
Braun & Hogenberg, Civitates, vol.1
1577
de Jode, Speculum
1578
Ptolemy, ed. Mercator (Cologne) Saxton, England
1578 1579
Waghenaer, Speighel
1584-5
Sanuto, Waghenaer, Thresoor
1592
Bouguereau, Le Theatre francois
1594
Mercator, Atlas
1595
Wytfliet, America
1597
Langenes, Caert-Thresoor
1598
Quad, Geographisch Handtbuch
1600
From Books with Maps to Books as Maps / 27 a substantial number of readers, in Italy at least, were not satisfied with the view of the world provided by contemporary editions of Ptolemy, even those well-supplied with modern maps. The Italian made-to-order atlas thus is an important step towards the realization of the independent editor: though the 'editor' in this case was the consumer, undoubtedly a well-educated individual who had put some thought into the selection of maps for the atlas and to its organization, but not someone who invested authority in that organization. Made by and for the use of an often anonymous individual, the structure of a composite atlas was not edited for a reading audience. Ultimately, the more successful model for atlas making was the Ortelian one. Its hallmark was the uniform composition and appearance of its maps. Flemish-type atlases, like the illustrated books that preceded them, appeared in standard editions of several hundred copies each, with each copy being virtually identical to the next. Text was not necessary to achieve this, but textual elements of various types, such as indexes, tables of contents, and introductory explanations, were sure signs of editorial confidence and commitment to standard editions (Table 1.2). Map indexes and tables of map content like those in Christopher Saxton's atlas of England and Wales (1579; Figure 1.3) became standard atlas features by the late sixteenth century. On one level, such a list was merely an expedient way of helping readers find the particular maps that interested them (Cheshire is on map twenty-two; Huntingdonshire on map fourteen, and so on). But it also represented a commitment on the part of the publisher or editor to a particular set of maps and a particular arrangement of them. Compared to the cost and effort of preparing and printing the thirty-four maps in this atlas, which required the better part of a decade, the cost of printing this sheet was no doubt minuscule, yet the only reason for printing such a list at all was the value attached to constructing this atlas precisely in this way over and over again. Of course, for this atlas standard composition and arrangement was of paramount importance. Sponsored and guided by Thomas Seckford, the Queen's Master of Requests, and encouraged by the cartophile William Cecil, Lord Burghley, in effect her secretary of state, Saxton's survey of England was no mere reconnaissance; it was an exercise of state control, and the atlas that resulted a symbol of the identity of sovereign and territory.77 To leave any county map out of this atlas would have been tantamount to the excising that territory from a map of England and indeed from the kingdom itself. A printed commitment to a particular composition and arrangement, then, invested the atlas editor with a measure of authority and some-
28 / James R. Akerman
Figure 1.3 Combined index to counties and table of maps for Christopher Saxton's atlas of England and Wales (1579).
From Books with Maps to Books as Maps / 29 times also an atlas's structure with meaning. In fact, a certain rigidity in atlas arrangement was a common manifestation of a particular editor's authority. For example, Mercator arranged the maps of European countries within his Atlas in a very clearly defined sequence, starting in the northwest, passing eastward through Scandinavia to Eastern Europe, then from the Iberian Peninsula, passing eastward again through France, Germany, Italy to the Balkans (Figure 1.4). Due to his prestige in the Netherlands, this became the standard arrangement of maps in most Dutch world atlases published in the seventeenth century. Editorial attempts to produce uniform map layouts and design did much the same thing. Not that late sixteenth-century editors were the first to achieve uniform presentations. The maps in the various editions of the old Ptolemaic corpus and in many portolan atlases were uniform in size, lettering and conventional signs, use of projections, and orientation. The island maps of the isolarii and the regional maps of Stumpf's Swiss cLandtafeln and Philipp Apian's Bairische Landtafeln make a strikingly uniform impression. But these sets of maps were all in some way limited in their authorship, geographical scope, and/or number; more ambitious collections of maps achieved apparent uniformity with greater difficulty. The maps in Miinster's Cosmographia universalis (including stock urban views as well as authentic ones, maps reprinted from his editions of Ptolemy, and smaller, very rudimentary regional maps) were assembled over a long period of time and in different contexts. As a result, they appear in disparate formats and sizes.78 Italian composite world atlases were obviously not compiled with uniformity in mind, and it is not hard to find in them fragments of wall maps and single-sheet maps drawn from a variety of publishers in widely varying formats and orientations. In terms of map design and layout the crucial transition to the modern atlas came when the editors of more ambitious works, especially world atlases, made the imposition of uniformity on diverse and highly detailed maps and descriptions an end unto itself. In this development Abraham Ortelius was the lightning rod. His stated goal was to bring the best available descriptions of the various parts of the world into a single 'commodious' package,... Which, notwithstanding that it were, by the first draught of the Author somewhat large and broad, we have brought into that small forme, as might agree with this our worke, and that the whole Mappe might be contein'd in one leafe ... yet so as nothing, no never so small a thing, is either omitted or altered that was to bee found in the greater.79
30 / James R. Akerman
Legend approximate centroid of region in European Sequence ^^ J number of plates devoted to region First 1
T.r
denote first andlast regions in sequence
Figure 1.4 The order and number of map sheets for parts of Europe in Mercator's Atlas (Duisberg 1595).
From Books with Maps to Books as Maps / 31 As he scrupulously acknowledged in his lengthy Catalogus auctorum,80 Ortelius's maps were mostly not his own. He stuck close to his sourcemaps and frequently altered their appearance only marginally. Design standards we take for granted are missing, and seem not to have been contemplated. Lettering styles are inconsistent; symbols for cities and mountains vary from plate to plate; maps are not oriented towards the north consistently; a wild profusion of projections and scales are used; and though the prime meridian used throughout the atlas is located (according to the convention of the time) in the islands of the eastern Atlantic, the graticule is missing from most of the maps. Political boundaries are not consistently shown. The size of the plates is consistent, but nine of the fifty-three plates have more than one map on them, because some maps, such as Ortelius's copy of Gabriel Symeone's 1560 map of Auvergne (in southern France), 'La Limagna d'Overnia/ show relatively small areas and isolated areas, and could not be usefully enlarged or combined with representations of adjacent provinces. Indeed, though Ortelius included six maps of French provinces in the Theatrum, there are huge gaps in his coverage of the country, especially its southern half, because few acceptable maps of the area were available to him. In order to attain geographical comprehensiveness, Ortelius could not achieve the lockstep uniformity of scale and presentation of Apian, Stumpf, or Ptolemy. The Theatrum nevertheless reflects its editor's diligent search for material, his critical eye, and his evident pride in his editorial achievement. Though he was probably the 'author' or 'cartographer' of only a few of his maps, Ortelius's author catalogue and his preface proclaim and even celebrate his role as meta-cartographer, as the editor of his collection rather than as author of its various parts. A similar, loose uniformity is evident in the city atlas conceived as a companion to Ortelius and edited by Georg Braun and Frans Hogenberg, Civitates orbis terrarum, a massive work in six volumes published in Cologne starting in 1572.81 The sources of the views and plans were diverse and little or no attempt was made by the engravers and designers to reconcile the differences between bird's-eye views, elevations, and planimetric representations. In many instances smaller depictions were grouped two, three, or four to a plate. Braun and Hogenberg worked with a very light hand indeed, but the modern reader is impressed - as, I suppose, was the sixteenth-century reader - with the size of the undertaking. Here, too, the editors' role in the construction of the atlas was not left unremarked: Braun and Hogenberg's names figure prominently in the atlas's dedications and prefatory material.
32 / James R. Akerman While Ortelius, Braun and Hogenberg, and others such as Gerard de Jode and Maurice Bouguereau managed to impose only a limited unity over the maps they collected, Gerard Mercator's editorial imprint upon his Atlas (Duisburg, 1595) permeated every map. He was a master of critical map compilation from multiple sources, whenever they were available, and because of this, though he was little travelled, each of his maps was truly his own. A typical example is the front folio sheet for the fifth of seven maps covering England in Mercator's Atlas. It is at once caption and title, giving an enumeration of the counties covered by the map that is to follow on the next two pages: 'Anglia v. Tabula. Hos continet Comitatus, Eboracum, Lincolniam, Derbiam, Staffordiam, Notinghamiam, Lecestriam, Rutlandiam, & Norfolciam.' It also tells us something about the entire structure of the atlas. Naming a map 'England. Fifth Map' of course makes no sense on its own; there must be at least four other maps in the series. This in turn implies a systematic mapping of the country. Turning the page confirms this expectation (Figure 1.5). Inside is a map that is clearly a fragment of something. Mirroring the caption on the preceding page, the map's title tells us again that we are looking at the counties of Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, Derbyshire, Staffordshire, Nottinghamshire, Leicestershire, Rutland, and Norfolk. The image itself depicts a region we don't easily recognize, one that is only intelligible as part of England. Like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, 'England. Fifth Map' and its cohorts in the series of seven are best understood as part of the whole, parts that most certainly can be read separately and in detail, but which are designed to be read together as part of a general picture of England. Dirk de Vries has recently noted that much of Mercator's coverage of Europe was compiled as larger, wall-sized maps which had apparently been broken into constituent atlas-sized sheets for the Atlas.82 It is possible, for example, if one wished to be so destructive, to take Mercator's maps of northern and southern Ireland, or northern and southern Scotland, out of the Atlas and, with a little bit of trimming and pasting, assemble them into single wall-size maps of Ireland and Scotland. On the basis of his thorough study of the Atlas, de Vries identified a total of nine such multi-sheet maps for various parts of Europe, though he was only able to provide evidence that Mercator sold these as separate wall maps in the instance of a four-sheet map of Switzerland. De Vries rightly sees that this is not entirely the point. Whatever his publication plans for them, Mercator's 'wall-maps' are a clear indication of the systematic way in which he went about gathering geographic information and compiling maps from his studies. No slave
From Books with Maps to Books as Maps / 33
Figure 1.5 Gerard Mercator, 'Eboracum, Lincolnia, Derbia, Staffordia, Notinghamia, Lecestria, Rutlandia, et Norfolcia/ from his Atlantis pars altera (Duisberg: Mercator's heirs, 1595). Courtesy of the Edward E. Ayer Collection, the Newberry Library.
34 / James R. Akerman to his sources, Mercator worked to reform the map of large portions of Europe by reworking and reintegrating available information according to uniform projections and scales. He then sectioned them off into atlas sheets. Put in another way, Mercator's maps fit so well together because they were entirely new and entirely his. This was no small or easy achievement. Mercator is said to have to worked on his atlas for at least a quarter century before his death in 1594, with the first fascicles of the Atlas in progress coming out only in the i58os.83 He died before the publication of the complete atlas in 1595.84 Mercator's Atlas was atypical in this respect: few cartographic projects of its scale have ever been more purely the work of a single individual, and it is doubtful that we could find a better illustration in any age of the influence of an editor over the structure of an atlas. In planning virtually every detail of the Atlas, Mercator blurred the line between map author and atlas editor, yet (in this work at least) his role as editor is clearly dominant. For here his considerable skills in the representation of places and regions are made to serve the whole; each map sheet in the atlas might well stand on its own as a fine and useful map, but its look, orientation, projection, scale, and even its place in the book are determined by its relationship to other maps in the atlas - that is, by Mercator's own keen sense of atlas structure. Hence, though atypical, Mercator's atlas was perhaps the purest sixteenth-century expression of the atlas idea. Conclusion: To Books as Maps Perhaps it goes without saying that the Flemish or Ortelian-style atlas enjoyed unprecedented commercial success. The first edition of the Theatrum itself went through four printings, and subsequent Latin editions, or translations into French, German, Dutch, English, Spanish, and Italian appeared every two or three years between 1571 and 1612. As the century turned, the popularity of the Theatrum was eclipsed only by the Atlas of Ortelius's friend Mercator (particularly after its sale in 1604 to the Hondius family of Amsterdam who progressively enlarged it under Mercator's name until the 16505). A pocket-sized Epitome (Antwerp, 1577) of Ortelius and an Atlas minor (Amsterdam, 1607) based on Mercator's Atlas, appealing to smaller purses, appeared almost immediately, and, like their progenitors, were renewed regularly. In all, Koeman's bibliography of atlases published in the Low Countries identifies more than 130 editions published between 1570 and 1600; Meurer's list of atlases published by the nearby Cologne-based 'school' of publishers identifies thirty-seven in the same period.85
From Books with Maps to Books as Maps / 35 The reasons for the popularity of the new cartographic form coming out of northwestern Europe are simply identified. After a century in which European readers were inundated with accounts of the New World and of the treasures of the Indies, they had grown accustomed to and eager for maps of all sorts. The geographical lessons of Ptolemy and his commentators now had been absorbed by seven or eight generations of scholars and their pupils in high places. Cartography had become a recognized tool of overseas maritime expansion, and the crowned heads of France, England, and Spain had followed German and Italian precedents in sponsoring, with varying success, the first systematic mappings of their sovereign territory. Everyone, it seems, had the world on their minds. The titles and frontispieces of Ortelius and Mercator and their successors reflected this eagerness among the literate classes for geographical knowledge for its own sake. 'Theatre' and 'atlas' shared in the current fascination with the contemplation and display of microcosms which was also manifest in the contemporary vogue in globes and wall maps, and of course in Elizabethan literary culture. Need I utter in this connection the name of Shakespeare's own theatre, the exterior of which was decorated with a representation of Hercules or Atlas holding a globe aloft?86 The microcosm was supposed to allow its beholder to grasp the essence and structure of the macrocosm. The atlas provided its readers with detailed descriptions of sometimes very small parts of the world, but its structure also provided the means of relating the parts to each other. Uniformity of design reinforced the authority of this structure, and with authority came the power to persuade. Mercator and Ortelius both set out to compile a comprehensive world atlas, but this was not simply a matter of plugging maps into some faceless and neutral editorial system. The Theatrum and the Atlas are marked by the different routes their editors took to the same goal and by their editor's responsiveness to the interests of their anticipated readership. Fifty-one percent of the maps of sub-continental regions in Ortelius's 1570 edition and forty-five percent of same in Mercator's 1595 atlas concern the Low Countries and Germany. Compositionally, their 'maps of maps' were the sixteenth-century Fleming's equivalents of that famous New Yorker drawing of the New Yorker's view of the United States, on which an incredibly oversized Manhattan overshadows everything to the west of the Hudson River. Like the New Yorker, others in this first generation of atlas makers were less circumspect about their orientation. A political agenda is easily read in the 1561 atlas of the Austrian Hapsburg lands by Wolfgang Lazius.
36 / James R. Akerman Each of the eleven regional maps in this atlas depicts a province under the Emperor's direct sovereignty; and each is framed by the device of the Habsburg double-headed eagle, providing symbolic unity where a legal one did not exist.87 As we have already seen, Saxton's atlas of England and Wales, introduced by a portrait of Queen Elizabeth, was in a very tangible sense the embodiment of the Queen and her state. Similarly, dynastic politics and a desire for national unity motivated Maurice Bouguereau to compile his Theatre frangois for publication in 1594 to honour the succession to the throne of Henry IV, though nothing like a complete atlas of the kingdom was yet possible.88 The publication of Pieter van den Keere's atlas of the Netherlands, Germania Inferior, in 1617, during an intermission of the Dutch seventy-year war for independence from Spain, was auspicious if not deliberately provocative. Nationbuilding exerted a major influence on its structure. A series of engravings introduces the volume showing heroic events in the forging of the Dutch nation from the ancient Batavians to the present time, and van den Keere's inclusion of all of the so-called seventeen provinces of the Low Countries ignored the loss of the southern provinces that would become modern Belgium.89 The wave of national atlas publishing even swept into Italy by 1619, when Giovanni Antonio Magini's L'ltalia was published (posthumously), despite the difficulty of compiling information from territories ruled by so many sovereigns and the anaemic position of the Italian map trade by this time.90 For each of these politically underpinned atlases, the standardization of editions and the uniformity of composition and map design were no mere sideshows. Their structuring of the world into nations and states was amplified by their appearance in standard editions and by the unity of effort and thought that the editor's insistence on stylistic uniformity expressed. Seen collectively, the whole round of national atlas publishing that straddled the turn of the seventeenth century raged like a war of maps, a form of national one-upmanship, and an early drawing of battlelines that would reappear continually throughout modern European history. We seem to have come full circle. Musings about the difficult but apparently merely technical task of achieving unity and balance in the construction of an atlas lead to questions about the atlas's normative role in the society that will use it. Good and bad go with this responsibility, but I think its exercise is often honorable. The advent of Geographic Information Systems and electronic atlases in our time poses a significant challenge to the sixteenth-century atlas idea. These technologies yield the composite atlases of our time, the user-
From Books with Maps to Books as Maps / 37 edited atlases of our future. The late Barbara Petchenik pondered this revolution with mixed feelings in 1985 and wondered what the fallout might be, particularly for geographical education. In order for children to become innovative adults, creating new relationships for themselves, they must be provided with certain conventions and fixed points that society has come to value and use. Just as they must learn conventional alphabets and grammar in order to synthesize novel utterances, they must learn to understand spatial facts in the form of traditional map images before they can utilize vast spatial databases effectively.... [TJhere is a need for widespread distribution of common images, not 'on demand' but provided, even imposed, so that all children growing up in a society learn a more or less common spatial vocabulary. ...91
We might with good reason question the motivations of the editors of each new atlas and examine carefully the ideas and conventions it passes along. But the need for geographical socialization and the demands placed on our comprehension of the world by its complexity and inconstancy should encourage us to preserve and use well the normative power of the paper atlas, the original atlas idea, for some time to come. NOTES 1 I am defining 'atlas structure' as the logic or scheme according to which the components of an atlas are selected, designed, and arranged. This may be a set of apparent relationships between the parts of an atlas or the editorial plan dictating the construction of an atlas. For the genesis of this term, I am indebted to William G. Dean, The Structure of Regional Atlases: An Essay on Communications/ Canadian Cartographer 7 (1970): 48-60. 2 Denis Wood, 'Pleasure in the Idea: The Atlas as Narrative Form,' in R.J.B. Carswell, G.J.A. de Leeuw and N.M. Waters, eds., Atlases for Schools: Design Principles and Curriculum Perspectives, Cartographica monograph no. 36, Cartographica 24 (1987), i: 24-45. 3 See, for example, Mary Pedley's discussion, in this volume, of the lack of standard editions among French atlases of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. 4 Michael Kidron and Ronald Segal, The State of the World Atlas (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1981); see also Denis Wood's review of
38 / James R. Akerman
5
6
7 8
9 10
The New State of the World Atlas in American Cartographer 13 (1986): 172-3. The atlas is in the Newberry Library and is described by Clara A. Smith in List of Manuscript Maps in the Edward E. Ayer Collection (Chicago: The Newberry Library, 1927), no. 2. So far as can be determined from published descriptions, in each of these atlases five charts cover the Atlantic coast of Europe from Gibraltar to the British Isles (i folio=2 pages), the western Mediterranean (i folio), central Mediterranean with Iberia and northwest Africa (i folio), eastern Mediterranean, and the Black Sea (on same folio with eastern Mediterranean). A sixth chart of the Adriatic Sea is present in five of the seven atlases. An eighth atlas attributed to Giroldi has only three charts. These atlases are listed in Tony Campbell, Tortolan Charts form the Late Thirteenth Century to 1500,' in J.B. Harley and David Woodward, eds., The History of Cartography, vol. i, Cartography in Prehistoric, Ancient, and Medieval Europe and the Mediterranean (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987), 453. Structural descriptions of individual Giroldi atlases are found in A.E. Nordenskiold, Periplus: An Essay on the Early History of Charts and Sailing-Directions, trans. Francis A. Bather (Stockholm: PA. Norstedt, 1897), 60; Paolo Revelli, I codici ambrosiani di contenuto geografico, Fontes ambrosiani, vol. i (Milan: Luigi Alfieri, 1929), nos. 217, 534, 90, 183; and Roberto Almagia, Planisferi, carte nautiche e affini dal secolo xiv al xvn esitenti nella Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Monumenta Cartographica Vaticana, vol. i (Vatican: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, 1944), 42. Most of the atlases attributed to Giroldi were, however, signed by him. For the sake of simplicity and brevity, I have in most instances supplied in parentheses the place and date of publication of the first editions of the atlases discussed in the text, supplying information about other editions and bibliographical descriptions only where appropriate. See Cornelis Koeman, The History of Abraham Ortelius and his Theatrum Orbis Terrarum (Lausanne: Sequoia, 1964), 17-18. The first edition was reprinted four times. In all, thirty-four editions were published in Latin, Dutch, German, French, Spanish, Italian, and English between 1570 and 1612. Thirty-two pocket Epitomes of the Theatrum were published from 1577 to 1724. See Cornelis Koeman and H.J.A. Homan, Atlantes Neerlandici, 6 vols. (Amsterdam: Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, 1967-1971; Alphen aan den Rijn: Canaletto, 1985), 3: 29-83.
From Books with Maps to Books as Maps / 39 11 Within Islamic traditions, for example, there were the manuscript atlases of the Balkhi School, of which more than thirty survive dating principally from the tenth through the fifteenth century. See Gerald R. Tibbetts, 'The Balkhl School of Geographers/ in J.B. Harley and David Woodward, eds., The History of Cartography, vol. 2, book i, Cartography in the Traditional Islamic and South Asian Societies, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), 108-55. 12 Cf. editions of John of Holywood (Sacrobosco), Sphaera Mundi (Venice, 1478 and later; Leipzig, ca.1494 and later). 13 Cristoforo Buondelmonte's manuscript Liber Insularum, describing and mapping the islands of the Grecian Archipelago, dates from around 1520. About sixty copies survive, most having more than seventy maps. Bartolommeo dalli Sonetti's poetic Isolario, with maps based largely on Buondelmonte, was printed in Venice in 1485 or 1486. Perhaps the best known Isolario and the most successful in its time was Benedetto Bordone's, which was published in Venice in four editions between 1528 and 1567. 14 For example, Bernhard von Breydenbach, Peregrinationes in Terram Sanctum (Mainz: Erhard Reuwich, 1486). Editions of this work with its famous early views of cities along the way to the Levant were published until 1522. 15 For reproductions of the printed pilot books, or rutters, of Pierre Garcie, dated 1502-10, and a discussion of this genre, see David W. Waters, The Rutters of the Sea: The Sailing Directions of Pierre Garcie (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1967). 16 Three early printed chronicles, illustrated with urban views and sometimes maps, are worth mentioning (in their earliest illustrated editions): Hartmann Schedel, Liber cronicarum [the so-called Nuremberg Chronicle] (Nuremberg: Anton Koberger, 1493); Jacopo Filippo da Bergamo Foresti, Supplementum chronicarum (Venice: Bernardinus de Benaliis, 1486); and Johannes Stumpf, Gemeiner loblicher Eydgnoschafft Stetten Landen und Volkeren Chronick (Zurich: Christoffel Froschouer, 1548). 17 For example, Olaus Magnus, Historia de gentibus septentrionalibus (Rome, 1555). Gerald Strauss, Sixteenth-Century Germany: Its Topography and Topographers (Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1959), numbers among the great patriotic histories of Central Europe, Sebastian Miinster, Cosmographei odfer Beschreibung alter Lander (Basel: Heinrich Petri, 1544); and Johannes Stumpf Gemeiner ... Chronick (1548) 18 Some recent appraisals of the reception of the Geographia in the West and its influence on geography and cartography, are Denis Cosgrove,
40 / James R. Akerman
19
20
21 22
23
24
'Mapping New Worlds: Culture and Cartography in Sixteenth-Century Venice/ Imago Mundi 44 (1992): 65-89; Samuel Y. Edgerton, 'From Mental Matrix to Mappamundi to Christian Empire: The Heritage of of Ptolemaic Cartography in the Renaissance/ in David Woodward, ed., Art and Cartography: Six Historical Essays (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987), 10-50; James A. May, 'The Geographical Interpretation of Ptolemy in the Renaissance/ Tijdschrift voor Economische en xSociale Geografie 73 (1982): 350-60; and David N. Livingstone, The Geographical Tradition (Oxford and Cambridge, Mass.: Blackwell, 1993). For a summary of this debate, see O. A. W. Dilke, with J. B. Harley and David Woodward, 'The Culmination of Greek Cartography in Ptolemy/ and also their 'Cartography in the Byzantine Empire/ in Harley and Woodward, eds., The History of Cartography, vol. i, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987), 177-8, 189-90, 266-72. These figures are derived from lists published in Dilke, Harley, and Woodward, 'Cartography in the Byzantine Empire/ 267-74; and Douglas W. Marshall, 'A List of Manuscript Editions of Ptolemy's Geographia,' Bulletin of the Geography and Map Division, Special Libraries Association 87 (1972): 17-38. Tony Campbell, The Earliest Printed Maps (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987). For descriptions of the printed editions of Ptolemy and their cartographic content see Charles E. Armstrong, 'Copies of Ptolemy's Geography in American Libraries/ New York Public Library Bulletin no. 66 (New York: New York Public Library, 1962); Justin Winsor, A Bibliography of Ptolemy's Geography (Cambridge, Mass.: John Wilson & Son, 1884); A. E. Nordenskiold, Facsimile Atlas to the History of Cartography (Stockholm, 1889; New York: Dover, 1973); Henry Stevens, Ptolemy's Geography: A Brief Account of all Printed Editions down to 1730 (London: Henry Stevens, 1908); and James R. Akerman, 'On the Shoulders of a Titan: Viewing the World of the Past in Atlas Structure/ Ph. D. dissertation, the Pennsylvania State University, 1991), 237-8. Geografia. Tavole moderne di geografia de la maggior parte del mondo di diversi autori raccolte et messe secondo I'ordine di Tolomeo ... (Rome: [Antonio Lafreri], ca. 1575). See Dana Bennett Durand's discussion of the mapping activities of a mid-century German group of Ptolemaic scholars in The Vienna Klosterneuberg Map Corpus: A Study in the Transition from Medieval to Modern Sciences (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1952); and Thomas Goldstein, 'Geography in Fifteenth-Century Florence/ in John Parker, ed., Mer-
From Books with Maps to Books as Maps / 41
25 26
27
28
29
30
31
32
chants and Scholars: Essays in the History of Exploration and Trade (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1965), 9-32. Elizabeth Eisenstein, The Printing Press as an Agent of Change, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979), 100-13, 192~3/ 415-16. Anthony Grafton, New Worlds, Ancient Texts: The Power of Tradition and the Shock of Discovery (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Library in cooperation with the New York Public Library, 1992), espec. 48-54. Robert W. Karrow, Jr., Mapmakers of the Sixteenth Century and Their Maps: The Catalogue of Cartographers of Abraham Ortelius (Chicago: Speculum Orbis Press for the Newberry Library, 1993), 261 writes that this addition 'seems more a matter of chance than a planned addendum/ but, whether by this or some independent source, this map was an established part of the canon of tabulae modernae by the end of the fifteenth century. See R. A. Skelton, 'Bibliographical Note/ in Claudius Ptolemaeus, Cosmographia, Ulm 1482, Theatrum Orbis Terrarum Series of Atlases in Facsimile, ser. i, vol. 2 (Amsterdam: Nico Israel/Meridian, 1963), v-xi; his, 'Bibliographical Note/ in Claudius Ptolemaeus Cosmographia, Bologna 1477, Theatrum Orbis Terrarum Series of Atlases in Facsimile, ser. i, vol. i (Amsterdam: Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, 1964), v-xii; and his, 'Bibliographical Note/ in Claudius Ptolemaeus Cosmographia, Roma 1478, Theatrum Orbis Terrarum Series of Atlases in Facsimile, ser. 2, vol. 6 (Amsterdam: Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, 1966), v-xiii. 'The Dedication of Donnus Nicholaus Germanus to the Most Illustrious Prince and Lord, Lord Borso, Duke of Modena/ English translation in Geography of Claudius Ptolemy, trans. Edward Luther Stevenson (New York: New York Public Library, 1932), 19-20. On these stock images and the production of the Nuremberg Chronicle, see Elisabeth Rucker, Die Schedelische Weltcronik (Munich: Prestel, 1973), 132-5; Charles Talbot, Topography as Landscape in Early Printed Books/ in Sandra Hindman, ed., The Early Illustrated Book: Essays in Honor of Lessing J. Rosenwald (Washington: Library of Congress, 1982), 106; and Adrian Wilson and Joyce Lancaster Wilson, The Making of the Nuremberg Chronicle (Amsterdam: Nico Israel, 1976). For bibliographic cartographic details relating to Apian and Honter, see Karrow, Mapmakers of the Sixteenth Century and Their Maps:, 49-53, 205-6, 307-13. Karrow does not, however, describe the astronomical diagrams and images of instruments and their uses appearing in abundance in the Cosmographicus liber, which I believe should be considered maps. Claudii Ptolemei ... Geographi[a]e opus novissima traductione (Strasbourg:
42 / James R. Akerman
33 34
35
36 37 38 39
40 41 42
43 44
Johann Schott, 1513). Because his name appears nowhere in the first edition of this version, doubt has been expressed through the years about Waldseemiiller's involvement in the project. Karrow assesses the facts in Mapmakers of the Sixteenth Century and Their Maps, 576-7, and rules in favor of Waldseemuller, noting that 'in an age in which anonymity of authorship is more common than today, [Waldseemuller did] not press for recognition [in the book itself] of his role.' La Geografia, trans, and ed. Girolamo Ruscelli and Gioseppe Moleto (Venice: Vincenzo Valgrisi, 1562). The first few lines of the title read: 'In hoc operae haec continentur Geographia Cl. Ptholemaei a plurimus uiris utriusq. linguae doctiss. emendata: & cum Archteypo graeco ab ipsis collata.' The editors in this instance were Marcus Beneventanus and Joannes Costa (Rome: B. Venetus di Vitalibus, 1507). Indeed, there is ample evidence that they were keenly interested in the process and results of geographical discovery. See Goldstein, 'Geography in Florence'; and Elisabeth Feist Hirsch, 'The Discoveries and the Humanists,' in John Parker, ed., Merchants and Scholars: Essays in the History of Exploration and Trade (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1965), 33-46. Tabulae geographicae Cl: Ptolemei ad mentem autoris restitutae & emendatae Gerardum Mercatorum ... (Cologne: Godefried Kempen, 1578). Theatri geographiae veteris (Amsterdam and Leiden, 1618); cf. Koeman and Homan, Atlantes Neerlandici, i: 61-6. Tony Campbell, 'Census of Pre-Sixteenth-Century Portolan Charts/ Imago Mundi 38 (1986): 67-94. This occurred by the late sixteenth century in northern Europe, but later in the Mediterranean region. See Cornelis Koeman, 'The Chart Trade in Europe from Its Origin to Modern Times,' Terrae Incognitae 12 (1980): 49-64. Nordenskiold, Periplus, 45. See Campbell, 'Portolan Charts from the Late Thirteenth Century to 1500,' 414-15. A rare generalization is offered by Koeman, who writes in 'The Chart Trade,' 50, that the atlases that survive were not made for pilots of shipmasters since they were finely illuminated. He acknowledges, however, that simple charts folded and mounted on boards were useful in the cramped space of the cockpit. Again, this is calculated from Campbell, 'Census of Pre-SixteenthCentury Portolan Charts.' For a summary of theories of the origin of portolan chart see
From Books with Maps to Books as Maps / 43
45 46 47
48
49
50
51 52 53
Campbell, Tortolan Charts from the Late Thirteenth Century to 1500,' 380-90. Ibid., 415. Smith, Manuscript Maps in the Ayer Collection, no. 8. Campbell, Tortolan Charts from the Late Thirteenth Century to 1500,' 406-7; Konrad Kretschmer, 'Marino Sanudo der Altere und die Karten des Petrus Vesconte/ Zeitschrift der Gesellschaft fiir Erdkunde zu Berlin 26 (1891): 352-70; repr. Acta Cartogmphica 7 (1970): 217-39. L'Atlas Catala de Cresques Abraham, 2 vols. (Barcelona: Diafora, 1975); David Woodward, 'Medieval Mappaemundi/ in Harley and Woodward, eds., The History of Cartography, vol. i (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987), 314-15. Now in the Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, Venice, it is described in G. Uzielli and P. Amat di S. Filippo, Mappamondi, carte nautiche, portolani ed altri monumenti cartografici specialmente italiani dei secoli xm-xvn, 2 vols, (Rome, 1882), 2: 37. 'Piloto mayor' was the title of the chartmaker and/or pilot who oversaw the training of pilots and the maintenance of the padron real or master chart of the world for Spain's Casa de Contratacion. See Edward L. Stevenson, The Geographical Activities of the Casa de Contratacion,' Annals of the Association of American Geographers 17 (1927): 39-59. Armando Cortesao and Avelino Teixeira da Mota, Portugaliae Monumenta Cartographica, 6 vols. (Lisbon: Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga, 1960; 2nd ed., 1987), i: 55-61. Reproduced in facsimile in Helen Wallis, ed., The Maps and Text of the Boke ofldrography Presented by Jean Rotz to Henry vm (Oxford: Viscount Eccles for the Roxburghe Club, 1982). For example, nine atlases by Hectomano di Freducci of Ancona survive from the period 1497-1539 that are nearly identical in their design, number of charts, and geographical focus on the Mediterranean, Black Sea, and West African and West European coasts. A Freducci atlas in the Newberry Library consists of five map openings: (i) West African coast; (2) West European coast; (3) Western Mediterranean; (4) Central Mediterranean; (53) Eastern Mediterranean; (5b) Black Sea. Other descriptions and discussions of Freducci atlases are: Roberto Almagia, Planisferi, carte nautiche e ajfini dal secolo xiv al xvil esitenti nella Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, 60-1; Giuseppe Caraci, 'The Italian Cartographers of the Benincasa and Freducci and the So-Called Borgiana Map of the Vatican Library/ Imago Mundi 10 (1953): 23-49; C. Errera, 'Carte e atlanti di Ottomano Freducci/ Rivista Geogr. Italiana
44 / James R. Akerman
54 55
56
57 58 59 60 61
62
63
64
65
2 (1895): 237-41; Pietro Frabetti, Carte nautiche Italiane dal XIV al xvu secolo conservate in Emilia-Romagna (Florence: Leo S. Olschki, 1978), no. 13; and Nordenskiold, Periplus, 64. For descriptions of five recorded atlases, see Nordenskiold, Periplus, 64; and Frabetti, Carte nautiche, no. 10. For descriptions see Almagia, Planisferi, carte nautiche 72-5; Julio Rey Pastor and Ernesto Garcia Camarero, La Cartografia Mallorquina (Madrid: Departamento de Historia y Filosofia de la Ciencia, 1960), 119-48; and Edward Luther Stevenson, Portolan Charts: Their Origins and Characteristics (New York: The Hispanic Society of America, 1911), no. 16. Henry R. Wagner, The Manuscript Atlases of Battista Agnese/ Bibliographical Society of America. Papers 25 (1931): 1-110; and his 'Additions to the Manuscript Atlases of Battista Agnese/ Imago Mundi 4 (1947): 28-30. Philipp Apian, Bairische Landtafeln (Ingolstadt, 1568); Johann Stumpf, Landtafeln (Zurich, 1548). Wolfgang Lazius, Typi chorographici Provin. Austriae (Vienna: Michael Zimerman, 1561). Giulio Ballino, Civitatum aliquot insigniorum, et locor, magis munitor exacta delineatio (Venice: Ferdinando Bertelli, 1568). Antoine du Pinet, Plantz, pourtraitz et descriptions de plusieurs miles et fortresses (Lyon: Jean d'Ogerolles, 1564). Gerard Mercator, 'The Preface upon Atlas/ in Atlas or a Geographicke Description of the Regions, Countries and Kingdoms of the World, trans. Henry Hexham (Amsterdam: Henrik Hondius and Jan Jansson, 1636; repr. Amsterdam: Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, 1968). Brief accounts of Atlas mythology and its literary record may be found in N.G.L. Hammond and H.H. Scullard, eds., The Oxford Classical Dictionary, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1970), 143; and William Smith, Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, 3 vols. (New York: AMS Press, 1967), i: 406-7. Johannes Keuning, 'The History of an Atlas: Mercator-Hondius/ Imago Mundi 4 (1947): 38; see also David Woodward, The Techniques of Atlas-Making/ The Map Collector 18 (March 1982): 2-5. For a more complete discussion of the origin of the term 'atlas' see my "To Contemplate Cosmographie": Mercator's "Atlas" and the Origin of the Atlas Idea/ forthcoming in Marcel Watelet, ed., Mercator: Le temps et I'espace, 1512-1594 (Antwerp: Fonds Mercator, 1994). Webster's Third New International Dictionary (Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1971), 138.
From Books with Maps to Books as Maps / 45 66 Dennis E. Fitzsimons, review, An Atlas of Irish History, American Cartographer 10 (1983): 168-9. See also Joseph T. Manzo, review, Atlas of Great Lakes Indian History, American Cartographer 15 (1988): 217-18. 67 Based on copies in the Newberry Library, Chicago. To calculate the index, I divided the number of pages (excluding) introductory pages and dedications primarily devoted to maps by the number of pages devoted primarily to text. Hence, numbers over i.o indicate a primarily cartographic book; numbers less than one are primarily textual. 68 A facsimile of the 1548 edition of this work is: Johannes Stumpf. Landtafeln: Der altest Atlas der Schweiz (Langnau a. A.: Verlag Dorfpresse , Gattikon, 1975). See also Karrow, Mapmakers of the Sixteenth Century and Their Maps, 510-16. 69 Quoted in Karrow, Mapmakers of the Sixteenth Century and Their Maps, 65. 70 I prefer the term 'composite atlas' over the terms 'atlas factice' or 'made-to-order atlas' to describe an atlas of unique and irregular composition assembled by or for a particular consumer, usually from plates issued by more than one publisher. For aspects of sixteenthcentury Italian production of these atlases, see Ronald Vere Tooley, 'Maps in Italian Atlases of the Sixteenth Century/ Imago Mundi 3 (1939): 12-47; Albert Ganado, 'Description of an Early Venetian Collection of Maps at the Casanatense Library in Rome,' Imago Mundi 34 (1982): 26-47; David Woodward, Taolo Forlani: Compiler, Engraver, Printer, or Publisher?' Imago Mundi 44 (1992), 45-64; and Elizabeth M. Hajos, 'The Concept of an Engravings Collection in the Year 1565: Quicchelberg, Inscriptiones vel tituli theatri amplissimi/ Art Bulletin 40 (1958): 152-3. 71 D.G. Moir and R.A. Skelton, 'New Light on the First Atlas of Scotland/ Scottish Geographical Magazine 84, 3 (1968): 149-59; Jeffrey C. Stone, 'Origins and Sources of the Blaeu Atlas of Scotland with Particular Reference to 'Extima Scotiae' (Atlas Novus, 1654),' Imago Mundi 26 (1972): 17-26; and his, The Pont Manuscript Maps of Scotland: Sixteenth Century Origins of a Blaeu Atlas (Tring, Herts.: Map Collector Publications, 1989). 72 Ernst Bernleithner, 'Austria's Share in World Cartography/ Imago Mundi 25 (1971): 71. 73 Discussions of the history, characteristics, and uses of woodcut and engraved maps are to be found in David Woodward, ed. Five Centuries of Map Printing (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1975). 74 One exception was Tomasso Porcacchi's L'isole piu famose del mondo (Venice: Simon Galignani, 1572).
46 / James R. Akerman 75 The size of a large-format atlas in the early era of printing, as with all 'folios' was determined by the size of paper molds. A single sheet of paper, which was usually either approximately 50x30 cm. or 70x500*1., folded once would yield four pages. The standard atlas map would be printed on the side of the sheet that would become the second and third pages. Then the whole unit would be mounted on a paper stub for gathering and binding, so that the folded image would be kept well free of the gutter of the book. A concise explanation of book imposition may be had in Lucien Febvre and Henri-Jean Martin, The Coming of the Book: The Impact of Printing, 1450-1800, trans. David Gerard, ed. Geoffrey Nowell-Smith and David Wootton (London: New Left Books, 1976), 68-70. 76 This is not, strictly-speaking, an edition of Ptolemy, but much of it is based on the Geogmphia and it incorporates the traditional Ptolemaic map corpus as well as four tabulae modernae. See the facsimile edition, Theatrum Orbis Terrarum Series of Atlases in Facsimile, 3rd ser., vol. 4 (Amsterdam: Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, 1966). 77 On the political aspects of Saxton's atlas, see, Peter Barber; 'England ii: Monarchs, Ministers, and Maps, 1550-1625,' in David Buisseret, ed., Monarchs, Ministers and Maps: The Emergence of Cartography as a Tool of Government in Early Modern Europe (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), 74-7; Richard Helgerson, 'The Land Speaks: Cartography, Chorography, and Subversion in Renaissance England/ Representations 16 (Fall, 1986): 51-85; and J.B. Harley, 'Meaning and Ambiguity in Tudor Cartography/ in Sarah Tyacke, ed., English Map-Making, 15001650 (London: British Library, 1983), 22-45. 78 See Ruthardt Oehme, 'Introduction/ in Sebastian Munster, Cosmographei, Basel 1550, Mirror of The World Series of Early Books on the History of Urbanization, ser. i, vol. 5 (Amsterdam: Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, 1968), v-xxvii; and Harold L. Ruland, 'A Survey of DoublePage Maps in Thirty-Five Editions Cosmographia Universalis of Sebastian Munster and in Editions of Ptolemy's Geographia 1540-1552,' Imago Mundi 16 (1962): 84-97. 79 'Abraham Ortelius ... to the Courteous Reader/ in The Theatre of the Whole World (London: John Norton, 1606). 80 For details of this remarkable resource, see Karrow, Mapmakers of the Sixteenth Century and Their Maps. A good general introduction to the publication history of the Theatrum orbis terrarum is Cornelis Koeman, The History of Abraham Ortelius and His Theatrum Orbis Terrarum (Lausanne: Sequoia, 1964).
From Books with Maps to Books as Maps / 47 81 See the facsimile edition, Brawn & Hogenberg Civitates orbis termrum, 1572-1618, 3 vols. (Amsterdam: Van Hoeve, 1980). 82 Dirk de Vries, The Wallmap of Helvetia by Mercator/ paper given at the 13th International Conference on the History of Cartography, Amsterdam, 1989. 83 Galliae Tabule Geographicae (Duisburg: Mercator, 1585); and Italiae, Sclavoniae, et Graeciae tabule geographicae (Duisburg: Mercator, 1589). 84 For further details about the publication of the Atlas, see Johannes Keuning, The History of an Atlas: Mercator-Hondius,' Imago Mundi 4 (1947): 37-62; and Koeman and Homan, Atlantes Neerlandici, 3: 281-549. 85 Koeman and Homan, Atlantes Neerlandici, vol. 5: 26-9; Peter Meurer, Atlantes Coloniensis: Die Kolner Schule der Atlaskartographie, 1570-1610 (Bad Neustadt a. d. Saale: Dietrich Pfaehler, 1988). 86 See Kent T. van den Berg, Playhouse and Cosmos: Shakespearean Theater as Metaphor (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1985), 23-40; Victor Morgan, The Literary Image of Globes and Maps in Early Modern England/ in Sarah Tyacke, ed., English Map-Making, 1500-1650 (London: The British Library), 46-56; Ejner J. Jensen, 'A New Allusion to the Sign of the Globe Theater/ Shakespeare Quarterly 31 (1970): 95-7; and the general discussion of the topic by Frances A. Yates, Theatre'of the World (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1969). 87 See James Vann, 'Mapping under the Austrian Habsburgs/ in David Buisseret, ed., Monarchs, Ministers, and Maps: The Emergence of Cartography as a Tool of Government in Early Modern Europe (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), 154-8; and the facsimile edition of this atlas, Wolfgang Lazius, Austria, Vienna 1561, Theatrum Orbis Terrarum Series of Atlases in Facsimile, ser. 6, vol. 2 (Amsterdam: Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, 1972). 88 See Ludovic Drapeyron, 'Notre Premier atlas national et la Menipee de Tours sous Henri TV,' Revue de Geographic 35 (1894): 433-45; repr. Acta Cartographica 4 (1969): 142-54; and his, 'Le premier atlas national de la France (1589-94),' Bulletin de Geographic historique et descriptive, 1890, 35-57; repr. Acta Cartographica 5 (1969): 77-99; Frangois de Dainville, 'Le premier atlas de France, Le Theatre Frangoys de M. Bouguereau, 1594,' Actes du 8$e Congres des Societes savantes, Chambery, 1960, Section de geographic (Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1961), 1-50; and his, 'Bibliographical Note/ in M. Bouguereau, Le Theatre Fran$oys, Tours 1594, Theatrum Orbis Terrarum Series of Atlases in Facsimile, ser. 2, vol. 5 (Amsterdam: Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, 1966), vi-xvi.
48 / James R. Akerman 89 See the facsimile edition, Pieter van den Keere, Germania Inferior, Amsterdam 1617, Theatrum orbis Terrarum Series of Atlases in Facsimile, ser. 3, vol. 3 (Amsterdam: Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, 1966). 90 See Roberto Almagia, 'Bibliographical Note,' in Giovanni Antonio Magini, Italia, Bologna 1620, Theatrum Orbis Terrarum Series of Atlases in Facsimile, ser. 6, vol. 5 (Amsterdam: Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, 1974), v-xxix. 91 Barbara Bartz Petchenik, The Natural History of the Atlas: Evolution and Extinction,' Cartographica 22, (1985), 56-7.
WALTER A. GOFFART
2 Breaking the Ortelian Pattern: Historical Atlases with a New Program, 1747-1830
Maps designed to clarify or narrate historical events and periods are the stepchildren of cartography. In the old library catalogue of Gottingen University, some historical atlases are listed under the countries they concern, others among aids to historical study such as time charts and genealogical tables, and a few under geography. Most libraries have a more compact system than Gottingen, but its example illustrates the ambiguity and embarassment involved in projecting history onto maps.1 Accounts of the progress of cartography in Italy, France, or another country mention historical atlases as an afterthought if at all. Few such collections merit the adjectives 'serious' or 'scholarly'; most are works of vulgarisation, especially school books, authored by pedagogues and army officers. Historical atlases are rarely loved, yet they have been in the literary landscape for four hundred years; and we seem unable to do without them. Guided by present practices, we expect historical atlases to be composed of scenes or themes out of the past, such as, for instance, 'Europe after the Peace of Westphalia' or "The Fur Trade in Canada.' The earliest collection of maps that looks this way is the Parergon of Abraham Ortelius - the historical supplement to his geographical Theatrum. The Parergon, issued first in 1579, is the original free-standing historical atlas; and because of its link with Ortelius's geographical Theatrum, it also set the example for providing big, comprehensive geographical atlases with either an appendix or a prologue of historical maps.2 Offshoots of the Parergon were not the only geographical works to be considered historical. Much of the felt need for historical information used to focus on map collections of two kinds. The first type, namely geographical atlases, was eminently useful for historical
50 / Walter A. Goffart reference, sometimes in their maps, sometimes in the commentaries accompanying them. As a result, they were often deemed to be historical as well as geographical. A Utrecht atlas of 1683 with maps by Nicolas Sanson calls itself 'Geographic and Historical'; so, for example, do Edinburgh productions in the 18005 by Lizars and A.K. Johnson. The best illustration of this loose terminology comes from the widely circulated seven-volume Atlas historique published by Zacharias Chatelain from 1705 onward - the first time these words were directly paired to form a title. The Chatelain collection is really a geographic survey of the contemporary world. Despite being well endowed with genealogical and regnal tables, it comes no closer than earlier Dutch atlases to what today would be called an 'atlas historique/3 More alien to us is the second type, namely, the many atlases designed for comparisons of ancient and modern geography. This emphasis on the comparison of ancient and modern seems to be derived from the many early publications in which the twenty-seven Ptolemaic maps were complemented by as many or more tabulae novae and often printed side by side with them.4 The comparison had historical goals, such as relating the political configuration of the current world to that of Antiquity, but it also reflected current geographic practice. Far into the eighteenth century, Ptolemy, Strabo, and other ancient authorities were sources of geographical information fully on a par with modern observations; heroes of map making like Guillaume Delisle and Bourguignon d'Anville were famed interpreters of classical data.5 It is little wonder that the bestselling French historical atlas of the seventeenthcentury was the 'Parallels of Ancient and Modern Geography' by the Jesuit, Philippe Briet. Right through the next centuries and down even to 1914 the exercise of comparing ancient and modern seemed to be the crucial historical dimension of geography.6 Our kind of historical atlas took long to emerge. The mixture of history and geography in comprehensive collections, and the prestige of comparing ancient and modern geography were among the obstacles. So was the biblical and classical subject matter that filled Ortelius's Parergon and embodied its sole idea of the past. Having history stop with the Roman Empire was a serious and persistent limitation. But the emergence of modern historical atlases involved more than just a flight from Ortelius's choice of contents. The Parergon's handling of time also needed adjustment. Its map illustrating the travels of Paul the Apostle precedes the one about Abraham; the campaigns of Alexander of Macedon are followed by the wanderings of Ulysses. No one seems to care about chronological
Breaking the Ortelian Pattern / 51 sequence until 1651, when an unsung cartographer named Philippe de La Rue published a six-map atlas called La Terre sainte. Little about La Rue's Holy Land collection excites attention except that, in assembling the six maps, he presented them in chronological order. Items one to four take us successively from primitive Canaan to the Roman divisions of Palestine under the sons of Herod the Great; item five fills in early Christian times and the Middle Ages with a map of the Patriarchate of Jerusalem; and item six closes the circle with modern Syria under Ottoman rule. La Rue's atlas with coverage from the origins to the present is the very first to assume a pattern that, for us, is common.7 Map makers did not rush to follow La Rue's example. Only three atlases down to 1705 take care to maintain chronological order. One is the remarkable cycle by Nicolas de La Mare of eight plans showing the development of Paris from Roman Lutetia through the Middle Ages to the seventeenth century (Figure 2.1). De La Mare, a civil servant to Louis xiv, wrote a multi-volume work on urban problems and management. His reconstructions of early Paris can be faulted for imaginatively expanding scrappy facts; yet he is a pioneer in using a sequence of maps to illustrate and dramatize a process of historical growth.8 Comparably novel is a two-part historical atlas of Dutch Frisia published in 1697 and 1701, by Menso Alting (1636-1713), burgomaster of Groningen. In the usage of Airing's time, the name Frisia had a generic sense denoting the seven Dutch United Provinces. Alting was a patriot, whose atlas illustrated the past of the entire northern Netherlands: the five maps of part one portray the region from the first century B.C. to the fifth A.D., and the nine of part two encompass the seven centuries from the emperor Justinian up to and beyond the great North Sea floods of the thirteenth century. Alting's collection has not lacked critics; it has few place names or other content; the details known to him about the lands he mapped were limited. Nevertheless, the progression of maps is well thought out and chronological. He presents an admirable framework for the Dutch past.9 Alting, unlike La Rue, did not carry his coverage down to the present; scenes of recent history became truly acceptable for mapping only after the French Revolution. With that exception, Alting was the first by quite a few decades to achieve a fair approximation of a national (historical) atlas and to address the medieval as well as the classical past. His work had more than local fame, but at the dawn of the eighteenth century he had as few imitators as La Rue.
52
Figure 2.1 Maps 3-6 from Nicolas de La Mare's Traite de la police ... [et] une
53
description historique et topographique de Paris (1705) showing the grow Paris. By permission of the American Geographical Society, Milwaukee.
54 / Walter A. Goffart This does not mean that other map makers were indifferent to the intellectual current that Alting responded to. Three noteworthy early eighteenth-century figures tried to create collections of historical maps that were not confined to Classical Antiquity but pushed on into the Middle Ages. Their attempts, though abortive, are suggestive of where the historical atlas was going. Christoph Keller, or Cellarius (1638-1707), a professor at Halle, was known as a workaholic and rumoured never to have even taken a stroll.10 His succinct and comparative Geographia antiqua was successfully marketed as a school text for more than a century; his Notitia orbis antiqui was considered a supreme achievement in ancient geography.11 Cellarius, who also had a part in turning 'Middle Ages' into the name of a historical period, planned to give the Notitia a medieval continuation. A set of maps was drawn for this project and engraved by the young J.B. Homann; but there still was no text for the continuation when Cellarius died in 1707. Homann's map plates languished in Leipzig for almost seventy years before being published, by which time they were outdated oddities.12 Johann David Kohler (1684-1755) was also a hard-working professor, first at Altdorf outside Nuremberg, then at the new university of Gottingen, where he inaugurated the chair of history.13 Kohler's intentions resemble Cellarius's. After producing an attractive Descriptio orbis antiqui in 1720, he decided to compile a full-scale medieval continuation. Realizing how large and novel a task he had taken on, he drew back and contented himself with a more modest project called 'Brief and Thorough Introduction to Ancient and Medieval Geography/ Its three parts were issued at intervals over a span of thirty-five years.14 By 1765, ten years after Kohler's death, a patient, unwavering subscriber to the 'Brief and Thorough Introduction' would have been in possession of twenty-seven ancient maps and twelve medieval ones, all of them small. No pattern or method holds together the twelve medieval items; Kohler simply formed an anthology of every usable specimen he could find. Though he lacked originality, his antennas were sensitive to contemporary demand. He is an undeniable trailblazer in marketing historical maps of medieval Europe. It is a small loss perhaps that the ventures of Cellarius and Kohler were stillborn. The unrealized project that held genuine promise for the development of historical atlases involved Guillaume Delisle (1675-1726), the Frenchman who, by all accounts, was the leading map maker of his generation. Famous among other things as an interpreter of classical sources, Delisle is also the first cartographer whose
Breaking the Ortelian Pattern / 55 collected works include a canon of medieval maps, notably a detailed portrayal of Dauphine and a reconstruction of the Byzantine Empire.15 One of his most widely reprinted maps, published in two sheets in 1705, is called 'Historical Vista for A.D. 400, (Theatrum historicum ad annum Christi quadringentesimi).' The Theatrum mainly shows the Roman Empire, but Delisle made clear his intention that this map should be a springboard to the Middle Ages.16 In 1720 the details of Delisle's ambitious programme of historical maps was published by an anonymous friend in the Mercure de Paris. Delisle was going to produce several more 'Historical Vistas/ for ancient as well as medieval history, and he meant to supplement them with a cycle of 'Vistas of ecclesiastical history/ This scheme, if carried out, would have retained the Ortelian repertory, but would have widened its scope and formed it into an unprecedented systematic, chronologically ordered collection of maps of world history.17 Delisle was fifty-one when he died in January 1726. His project of historical maps went with him. Regardless of its incompleteness, Delisle's plan points much more directly to the future than those of Cellarius and Kohler: it promised an ordered ensemble - not just disconnected maps, but an historical atlas recognizably similar to ours in content and arrangement. No one, however, seemed to be waiting impatiently for such a collection. In the two decades after Delisle's death, many historical maps were produced with novel subjects. Ludovico Muratori's collection of Italian historical sources has a splendid reconstruction of Lombard Italy; Henry Liebaux provided Gabriel Daniel's Histoire de France with a crude approximation of the early Frankish kingdom.18 Map makers farther east started their long training in reconstructing limited districts of Germany from the evidence of medieval charters19; and a Jena-trained Lutheran minister in Poszon (Bratislava) reconstructed the boundaries of ancient and medieval Hungary.20 Medieval geography assumed a place alongside the entrenched duo of ancient and modern geography; a first book on this new subject was published in 1712, with reference to German conditions.21 These activities, to say nothing of Alting's example for the northern Netherlands, suggest how well prepared the soil was for a map collection reaching beyond biblical and classical antiquity. But its realization was long in coming. This breakthrough is generally credited to the Augsburger Matthias Haas or Hase (1684-1742), a professor of mathematics at Wittenberg, who certainly went far toward its attainment. Hase was a first-rate cartographer, who contributed a sheaf of purely geographic maps to
56 / Walter A. Goffart the Homann Heirs, the leading German map publisher of the time.22 He outlined his plan for a historical atlas in a university address in 1728, when Delisle had just passed from the scene; the work finally appeared only in 1743, a year after his own death. The Homann Heirs issued an omnibus collection of Hase's historical maps in 1750 under the title Atlas historians, and it continued to be marketed as late as i8i3-i4.23 Nevertheless, Hase's main contribution to the genre resides in the twenty-eight-map series of 1743 concerned with 'the greatest empires/ They are coupled with non-geographic material to form a university text.24 Hase's theme of summa imperia evokes the medieval idea that a succession of empires was entrusted by Almighty God with primacy in ruling the world; the scheme was still found at the time in the history curricula of many German universities. In Hase's hands, the mapped empires start with the Egypt of Sesostris and proceed in twenty-odd steps to the Russian and Holy Roman empires of the 17305. All periods of history are taken into account. No one before Hase had recreated the late Roman Empire of Justinian and its neighbours or had been so thorough with the Holy Roman Empire.25 Hase was keenly aware, like Delisle before him, of the Islamic and Asiatic aspects of the Middle Ages. Five of his maps focus on the empire of the Caliphs and others still on the Mongols and the Ottomans.26 The ancient world accounts for much less than half the contents. Something new had happened in historical atlases. The reputation Hase won from this publication was solid and lasting. Nevertheless, his example alone could not bring about an enduring change. Soon after him, there began the curiously coherent period of what I call 'ecumenical, sequential' atlases. I mean by this atlases that, first, embrace the entire world or most of it; second, are ordered by strict chronological sequence rather than by themes; and, third, repeat essentially the same base map over and over again. The chronological plan of these collections differs from Hase's theme of empires, but his Eurasian breadth and universal scope are staunchly retained. The earliest of these 'ecumenical, sequential' atlases is a sixty-sixmap draft at the Paris Bibliotheque Nationale, bearing the title Atlas complet des revolutions a work whose date, authorship, and circulation are unknown.27 Several more of these collections have the trappings of mystery, but there are straightforward, signed pieces as well, including Edward Quin's aesthetically appealing Historical Atlas of 1830, discussed later, which brings the series to an end.
Breaking the Ortelian Pattern / 57 The anonymous Paris draft that inaugurates the genre is, in design, an earnest world chronicle-in-maps, starting from the dispersion of Noah's sons over the globe and ending with the annexation of Lorraine to France in 1737. Presumably the draft was prepared not long after this final date; the Bibliotheque Nationale catalogue suggests '1747question mark.' Whatever the date, we are presented sixty-six times with the same giant engraved map, double-folio in size, extending across Eurasia from Spain to Korea. In every leaf appropriate adjustments in boundaries are brightly coloured by hand. The draft did not attain fully finished form; there are crossings-out and changes of mind. Handwritten sheets with titles and explanations separate each spread from the other; these sheets assure a continual accompaniment of words to images. Thirty-one maps, almost half the total, concern the Middle Ages; modern times after 1500 are limited to a mere three or four. No one in France or outside acknowledged being influenced by this imperfect but nevertheless bold and original draft atlas. In 1761 a minor man of letters called Luneau de Boisgermain invited subscriptions for a twenty-sheet atlas with much the same plan. Luneau's project got no farther than three maps; all of them have vanished except for one lack-lustre sheet at the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia. Luneau's modest reputation came not from atlas making, but from adapting interlinear translations of classic texts to the teaching of foreign languages. Nevertheless, the surviving map shows that his atlas was to have the whole world as field.28 In 1763, soon after Luneau's project was abandoned, a complete 'ecumenical, sequential' atlas was put on sale in Paris; copies of it survive in many libraries. Its long title in translation is 'The revolutions of the universe, presenting the political divisions of the various regions ... from the dispersion of the Children of Noah until the reunion of Lorraine to France, divided into 30 intervals.' A certain Michel Picaud of Nantes designed the underlying map, which again stretches from England to Japan; the authorship of the atlas is masked by the pseudonym 'Dupre.'29 The work has long been attributed to Philippe de Pretot, yet Philippe's signed work is devoid of originality and shows no trace of the Dupre scheme. Even though a real Dupre has yet to be credited with this atlas, it seems preferable to use the pseudonym than to drag the unlikely Philippe de Pretot into the story.30 The Dupre atlas of 1763, as its title suggests, is related to its anonymous partially manuscript predecessor. The chronological scope
58 / Walter A. Goffart is the same, and so is the relative distribution of maps, complete with paltry attention to the period after 1500. A printed commentary to the thirty maps is pasted to the left outer edge, much as Guillaume Delisle had pasted commentaries to his "Historical Vista for A.D. 400.'3I Dupre's atlas, like its predecessors, has shortcomings. A single map outline is repeated thirty times; variation occurs only in the location of the coloured internal borders. Dupre assumes that the succession of thirty changes will be instructive. The idea reminds us of how the frames of animated films achieve the illusion of movement, but at thirty steps for several thousand years, each leap is too long to be smooth and unbroken. The focus of attention is more admirable for its breadth than considerate of its audience's interests. The viewer faces a mainly Asian base map; Europe is tucked away, quite small, in the left-hand corner, and the New World is left out.32 Despite these flaws, the 'ecumenical' format takes historical atlases a significant step beyond Hase. The Paris draft and Dupre retain the classical and biblical content of Ortelius's Parergon, yet extend it so as to present a world history that runs 'from the origins to the present'; they bring all lands within a single frame, undivided into 'empires/ and they strive bravely to convey the illusion of continuous historical change. To a commentator early in 1805, this sequentiality had become an essential feature of historical atlases as a genre: 'An historical atlas must... supply many maps and they must follow each other in chronological order, so as to present to the eye the gradual changes in the setting of events/33 In today's historical atlases that doctrine retains force, even though tempered by the multiplication of thematic maps. Recent ventures into historical atlas making for computers, such as the program called Centennia (Chicago, Clockwork Software Inc.), appear to be unconscious revivals of this sequential phase in the development of the genre. The Centennia advertising leaflet clearly evokes the goals of Dupre et al. married to electronic technology: '[The program] chronicles ten centuries of history. Boundary changes are shown year by year as empires rose and fell. ... Put [Centennia] in "Movie Mode" and watch the maps change as you go forward and backward in time/ In the 17605, atlases with a similar approach to time were in the wind. The earliest example with a narrow field is a historical atlas of France, again a first and not rivaled until that of Adrien-Hubert Brue in 1820-28. Its compiler was a Paduan map maker still in his twenties called Giovanni Antonio Rizzi-Zannoni.34 Zannoni eventually became a major cartographer, mainly working in the Kingdom of Naples. His early years are a problem because he chronically embellished his
Breaking the Ortelian Pattern / 59 curriculum vitae. One thing he never did, though, was to claim credit for inaugurating the atlas of French history. He probably realized that historical maps counted as hack work and brought no fame; as an ambitious cartographer, he was careful not to boast of them.35 Whereas the Dupre atlas does world history in thirty sheets, Zannoni's weighs in at sixty maps for France alone. Twenty-four are addressed to the theme of the waning and waxing of the royal domain, still today a favourite subject in French historiography. Modern events are given due attention. No other eighteenth-century country had comparable geographic coverage of its past.36 Menso Alting stopped short of the age in which Frisia became the United Netherlands; Hase produced a historical atlas of the German Reich consisting of only seven sheets; the Historical Atlas of England by John Andrews in the 17903 dilutes history with maps of fisheries and spas, and edifies us with a glimpse of the British Isles when the waters of the Deluge were receding.37 Zannoni's hack work stands up well by comparison with its peers. The Zannoni collection did not mean that 'ecumenical, sequential' atlases had lost their appeal. In 1776 our Paduan fled from Paris; just about then, a Gottingen professor named Johann Christoff Gatterer was preparing a course of lectures on geography. As Kohler's successor in the Gottingen chair of history, Gatterer taught the auxiliary disciplines of chronology, genealogy, heraldry, and diplomatic.38 Geography was also auxiliary, and Gatterer, with a view to the new course, designed a voluminous sheaf of maps, including a forty-four sheet historical atlas. He had the maps engraved and printed at his expense; though coloured to his specifications, they were mute outlines, often lacking place names and legends. They were for Gatterer's students, providing visual matter for the lecturer's oral commentary and a ground for student notes. Nevertheless, some sale outside the university was expected and in fact took place. Gatterer's maps were produced between 1774 and 1776; they were reviewed in the Historisches Journal that he had founded, and they were twice reprinted. Some of them survive in portfolio in Gottingen and as bound volumes at Harvard and in Berlin. But the full forty-four piece historical atlas has yet to resurface. There are several descriptions of the full contents, together with a colour reproduction, done in 1805, of leaf eighteen of the 1789 reprint.39 Gatterer meant his historical maps to assist in the teaching of 'the science of states' (Staatenkunde), which he saw as having global ramifications. The maps were projected onto partial hemispheres,
60 / Walter A. Goffart sometimes including the whole of Eurasia, sometimes a segment. Time was adapted to suit Gatterer's emphases. Cursory attention is paid to the earliest empires, such as Persia, Macedon, and Rome; and modern history is given short shrift: there are no maps after 1517. But, in a new departure, three thematic modern maps, of languages, religions, and commerce are supplied. More than half the maps Gatterer fostered are concerned with what he called 'The geography of the Volkerwanderung [the Migration of peoples, also called the Barbarian Invasions], together with the major states of the Middle Ages/ Within a strict chronological progression, he arranged medieval events theatrically into five acts and twenty-four scenes. His medieval epoch looks odd by comparison with ours: Gatterer's is massively Asiatic, Islamic, Mongol, and Ottoman. Our high Middle Ages of castles, crusades, and lofty cathedrals is crammed into a fourth act opening with the Hungarians ca. 900 and closing with the thirteenth-century Mongol invasion. Gatterer's history, like Delisle's and Hase's, is not Eurocentric.40 Two more map makers after Gatterer produced 'ecumenical, sequential' collections, but only after a pause of four decades. However there are two other atlases whose enthusiastic reception at the opening of the nineteeth century anticipates the widening flow of historical atlases from the 18305 onward. This change in quantity should be underscored. Since Ortelius's Parergon, atlases similar to it had been rarities. There is no sign, in the later eighteenth century, of a rise in the volume of production. Classical atlases sold well, but historical atlases of the kind considered here were what today would be called a niche product. Their range of offerings now went beyond the Ortelian diet of Greek, Roman, and biblical antiquity, but, with few exceptions, they still kept recent modern history out of their pages. And they were seldom produced.41 Historians of geography believe that the French Revolution profoundly affected the discipline. It also jolted historical atlases. Never had the map of Europe been shaken so much in so little time. The aging French geographer Edme Mentelle decided that stability would return with the Peace of Amiens (1802) and took the occasion to begin his Geographie universelle: he felt certain that change had ended.42 Of course Mentelle was wrong about Amiens: many rapid turnovers were still to come. The French today distinguish histoire moderne down to 1789 from contemporary history thereafter. This distinction was already made at the time, if not in 1789 itself at least well within the Revolutionary and Napoleonic periods. A new era was felt to have dawned, for better or for worse. The sense of a leap from the recent
Breaking the Orteliari Pattern / 61 past was immediate.43 Under the circumstances, both Europe, in which the Revolution was occurring, and the recent past, which was in the process of being obliterated, abruptly acquired a value - a need to be immediately commemorated - that they had not had for Dupre and Gatterer, let alone for Alting and Delisle. The year 1802 witnessed the opening instalment of the excellent 'Atlas and tables for surveying the history of all European lands' by Christian Kruse (1753-1827). It was the first historical atlas limited to Europe. Kruse, a north German, had been born into desperate poverty and, though his parents lived, spent some of his childhood in an orphanage; out of these beginnings, he became an esteemed teacher, tutor to the sons of the Duke of Oldenbourg, and ultimately a history professor at Leipzig University.44 Kruse's atlas of European history followed the 'ecumenical, sequential' plan in being committed to chronological intervals. But Kruse cut loose from the Asian leanings of his predecessors; and instead of marrying antiquity to the Middle Ages, he began in A.D. 400 and pressed on beyond 1500 and as far as 1816. His total deletion of classical antiquity is a remarkable break with tradition. Yet it is the maps he provides for 1600, 1700, and even later that are probably his most innovative contribution to the genre.45 Kruse was not alone in redirecting historical maps. In 1801, a year before his opening installment, there appeared in London the initial edition of what would be a resounding bestseller, the Genealogical, Chronological, Historical and Geographical Atlas of A, Le Sage. Le Sage was the pseudonym of an emigre marquis and former naval lieutenant named Emmanuel de Las Cases. Only fifteen when he exchanged school for a midshipman's berth, Las Cases had few qualifications as a historian or a map maker, but both when a needy exile and after his return to Paris in 1802, he was admirably resourceful and earned at least two fortunes by his pen.46 His success with the public may have come from being a thorough amateur. Not for him the format of sequential maps. Kruse's atlas, though European in focus, remained well within the tradition of the Paris draft and Dupre. Las Cases seems to have been blithely unaware of tradition. His own design was full of time charts, genealogical tables, and letterpress of other kinds; maps were secondary and framed by columns of colour-coded print. His sequence of subjects was not guided by chronology but by the country-by-country order of geographical atlases.47 Las Cases's idea of how to make a map historical was to run across its face a gaudily coloured line tracing a campaign or journey (Figure
62 / Walter A. Goffart 2.2). Lines tracing campaigns or journeys were not new, but none of the atlases mentioned up to now used them. On this cursory basis, Las Cases outstripped Kruse by quite a few years in the race to multiply maps of modern history. He presented tracks in remarkable abundance: the Stuart kings in civil war; Gustavus Adolfus in war-torn Germany; the Duke of Berwick and other Spanish campaigners; Charles xn of Sweden astonishing Europe with his exploits; Napoleon and Suvarov in Italy; not least, the thereafter inescapable map of the barbarian invasions - Las Cases's, alas, permanent contribution to medieval history.48 With Kruse and Las Cases, historical atlases graduated to forms that they largely retain; but the 'ecumenical, sequential' format, though obsolescent, still had enough vitality to inspire several memorable works in the next decades. While Las Cases and Kruse still dominated the market, a retired Prussian captain named Friedrich Benicken produced two atlases under the auspices of the then renowned Weimar Geographical Institute. The first, called Schulatlas, appeared in 1820; the second, a library version or Handatlas, followed from 1820 to 1824. Both were engraved on stone by Anton Falger, precocious examples of lithographed atlases.49 Benicken's two productions were commercial failures. Though no more than fourteen sheets thick, each is very broad and unwieldy, and printed on shabby grey paper. A contemporary remarked that the Schulatlas was obviously unsuited for class use, and he was right: a small Europe appended to a huge Asia was hard to reach in the upper left-hand corner. The shortcomings of the 'ecumenical' format as the basis for historical maps has never been so clearly illustrated.50 But Benicken's designs are fascinating, full of ingenious initiatives and devices. The Handatlas differs considerably from the school version. In a remarkable innovation, the history of geographic exploration is mixed in with political history. The basic repeating map is an outline of the world. In the Handatlas no more than a faint pencil stroke reveals the earth as long as it is terra incognita; the outline lights up in colour after the land is discovered and annexed to geography.51 We shall see in a moment what Edward Quin made of this initiative. The Schulatlas (but not its sequel) adopts Las Cases's page layout and outdoes him by multiplying march routes; the tracks are much more carefully drawn than in the French atlas and projected on far better geographic outlines. It is as though Benicken were trying to show how tracks, presumably bungled by Las Cases, should be correctly handled. The Handatlas, with few tracks, fills the blank space of its large sheets
Figure 2.2 The map of the barbarian invasions and accompanying text from Emmanuel de Las Cases Atlas geographique, historique, chronologique et genealogique (Paris, 1804). By permission of the National Archives of Canada.
64 / Walter A. Goffart with enlarged insets of selected historical moments. Benicken is fully alive to the post-Revolutionary emphasis on modern times: no fewer than six sheets, more than forty percent of the total, portray the years after 15OO.52 In skill and detail of execution, the Benicken atlases may well mark the zenith of the 'ecumenical, sequential' type. But the end was in sight. If Benicken's commercial failure proved anything, it was that his unwieldy maps were still not large enough to present the ecumenical programme with adequate detail and intelligibility. If this was so, cartography and practical atlas making had reached an impasse. It was time to find different ways to achieve the same result. Where cartography fails, however, art still has a chance. England had not had a historical atlas of the long-prevailing continental type. Edward Quin finally supplied a home-grown example. Little is known about Quin. He had no special qualifications in history or geography; he was an Oxford graduate who worked as a London barrister, and died in 1828, aged thirty-four. His Historical Atlas was then going through the press and appeared early in 1830. It consists of twenty-one maps, each accompanied by a nondescript synopsis of the period in question. Critical reception of Quin's atlas was narrow but positive. The work was reprinted in i836.53 A decade later, William Hughes, a reputable cartographer, redrew Quin's maps on a larger, hemispherical scale, with some changes in substance, and published them in 1846. Much of the drama of Quin's design was eliminated in the process. Quin's own maps, stripped of the written commentary but with a new final map, were again published in 1856 and reprinted three years later.54 The American educator Emma Willard, who visited London in 1831, copied Quin's design rather closely in an atlas of her own. A facsimile, hand-painted by John Palm in 1839 as a gift for a young friend in Holland, survives in Munich.55 Quin's posthumous collection is the last of the 'ecumenical, sequential' atlases, but seems to have outstripped all the others in finding favour with the public. The main copy at New York Public Library, a Hughes reprint, is in a deplorable state owing to intensive use.56 The secret of Quin's success seems to reside in the dramatic black clouds that, on his maps, gradually roll back to reveal more and more of the world (Figure 2.3). His title advertises a 'Series of Maps of the World As Known at Different Times'; this programme requires that 'at each period, only that part of the world [should be shown] which there is reason to believe was actually known to the geographers and statesmen of that time/ Because the other lands exist even if not known, the
Breaking the Ortelian Pattern / 65
Figure 2.3
The curtain of clouds again moves outward late in the fifteenth century
uncovers America in a plate from E. Quin, Historical Atlas
By permission of St. Michael's College Library, University of Toronto.
66 / Walter A. Goffart device of clouds is used to mask them until they were found. In the map for the 17805, when the shores of all continents had been mapped, the clouds disappear, but large patches of land are coloured brown to mark them as unexplored. Clouds proved to be a visually effective way to indicate the progress of geographic discovery. Quin nowhere attributes a moral quality to his clouds. They do not signify dark barbarism, nor does their rollback indicate human progress; the fall of Rome and onset of the 'Dark' ages do not occasion retrograde cloud movement. But Quin's own vision of history was a thing of light and darkness; he wrote that students running their eyes from one of his maps to the next would be like a watchman on some beacon tower, [viewing] the hills and peopled valleys around, always the same in situation and in form, but under every changing aspect of the hours and seasons. Now basking in the meridian sunshine, then sinking in to the gloom of even, and again emerging into the light of returning day. Those receptive to so pictorial a conception of the past were likely to be moved by the spectacle of rolling clouds and to draw their own conclusions.57
Many historical atlases are meant simply as companions to the reading of books; their ambition, in the words of a 1699 collection, is 'to elucidate the poets as well as the historians'; Pierre Duval, in the same spirit, offered maps 'pour bien entendre les historiens.'58 A more ambitious goal for such atlases is to narrate history through maps. This has always proved hard to do, since it is one thing to display information and another to create images that, unaided by commentary, will convey the changing past. Among the authors evoked here, Edward Quin seems, for the right or wrong reason, to have had greater success than most in being a narrator. Quin's remote ancestor in this effort is Nicolas de La Mare with his eight plans of Paris. The entire series of 'ecumenical, sequential' atlases, along with the offshoots by Zannoni and Kruse, document the early effort to tell history through maps.59 The basis for this effort was narrow; from our perspective, the more interesting aspects of the past were left out. Onlookers were expected to be gripped by the spectacle of changing boundary lines and, through them, by the image of the rise and fall of empires and other dominations. Hase's focus on empires offered some but too few possibilities for animating borders into swelling and shrinking motion. The uniform repetitions of the unpublished Atlas complet des revolutions and
Breaking the Ortelian Pattern / 67 the Dupre atlas made such animation possible. The designers did not expect maps to speak unaided; written explanations were attached or, as with Gatterer, were promised in oral form. But maps took precedence, and their reiteration tried to project an evolving pattern to the reader's eye. Chronologically ordered historical atlases with a comprehensive, if not universal, sweep did not end with Quin. Works with such a programme have continued in the nineteenth century and our own. Their arrangement, however, is one among others, a close to obligatory pattern if Europe or the world and a wide time span are addressed, and if the luxury of geographical, country-by-country coverage proves too costly. A different situation prevailed between Hase or the draft Atlas complet and Quin; then, the 'ecumenical, sequential' plan was the via regia of historical map making. It was followed with deliberation and sometimes with a rigour bordering on the mechanical, as though its users were certain that the definitive formula for historical cartography had been found. Kruse or Quin stand at a long distance from Ortelius's Parergon. The aspiration to speak through images is only one of the innovations that the 'ecumenical, sequential' collections embodied. The main changes are that the whole of history was drawn into the programme, and the order of maps was regulated by the order of time. By comparison with the abundant production from the 18305 on, earlier historical atlases were few and far between, and they chose and arranged their contents in more limited ways. The collections discussed here help to illustrate the steps involved in the passage of historical atlases from rarity to abundance. NOTES i
The new Gottingen library catalogue is computerized; the old one is in volumes similar to the thick folios at the Bodleian or the British Library. At the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris, many historical atlases are not in the cartographic section (Cartes et plans) but among general history in the main collection (Imprimes). A good illustration of the low estate of historical atlases is their virtual absence in Walter W. Ristow, American Maps and Mapmakers: Commercial Cartography in the Nineteenth Century (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1985). Full acknowledgements will have to await the longer work from which this article derives. I limit my thanks to Joan Winearls, for her
68 / Walter A. Goffart
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3
4
5
splendid organization of the Editorial Conference; to J. Furgyik, of the Kartensammlung, Niedersachsische Staats- und Universitatsbibliothek, Gottingen, for his kindness and patience in assisting my visit in June 1-993' and, not least, to Roberta Frank. For bibliographical data on the Parergon, see Cornelius Koeman, ed., Atlantes Neerlandid, Bibliography of Terrestrial, Nautical and Celestial Atlases and Pilot Books Published in the Netherlands, 6 vols. (Amsterdam: Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, 1967-85), in, 69-70. There is a facsimile of the Parergon in Abraham Ortelius, The Theatre of the Whole World, London 1606, ed. R. A. Skelton (Amsterdam: Theatrum orbis terrarum, 1968). See also C. Koeman, The History of Abraham Ortelius and his 'Theatrum orbis terrarum' (Lausanne: Sequoia, 1964), 44; Eduard Brandmair, Bibliographischer Untersuchungen iiber Entstehung und Entwicklung des Ortelianisches Kartenwerkes (1914, rpr Amsterdam: Meridian, 1954). Geographische en Historische Beschryvingh der vier bekende Werelds-Deelen (Utrecht, 1683). Daniel Lizars, Edinburgh Geographic and Historical Atlas (Edinburgh, 1831). W. and A.K. Johnston, National Atlas of Historical, Commercial and Political Geography (Edinburgh, 1843); Atlas historique, ou nouvelle introduction a I'histoire, a la chronologic et a la geographic ancienne et moderne, representee dans de nouvelles cartes oil Von remarcjue I'etablissement des etats et empires du monde, leur duree, leur chute etc., 7 vols. (Amsterdam: chez Francois L'Honore et Zach. Chatelain, 170520). For the attribution to Zacharias, not Henri Abraham, see Koeman, Atlantes Neerlandid, n, 33 (without explanation), and the review of the original atlas in Acta Eruditorum (Leipzig) (July, 1709), 294-301. J. A. Magini, Geographiae universae turn veteris turn novae absolutissimum opus (Venice, 1596) is a good example of early comparative geographies. On the importance of the classics even to eighteenth-century cartographers, see B.-J. Dacier, Rapport historique sur le progres de I'histoire et de la litterature ancienne depuis 1789 (Paris, 1810), 221, 225, 227-47, and the statement on 222, 'La geographic ancienne n'est done pas seulement, ainsi qu'on pourroit le penser, une aide ou une appendice pour I'histoire; elle est une partie essentielle et integrante de la science geographique proprement dite.' Some regretted that Pierre Lapie, a leading French cartographer of the early nineteenth century, was so busy 'qu'il nait pu acquerir dans les langues savantes une connaissance assez etendue pour s'elever au-dessus de la geographic moderne' (Archives biographiques frangaises, Munich: K.G. Saur, 1988, fiche 598, frame 68). On these ideas, see also Emmanuel de Martonne, Traite de geographic physique, 4th ed., 3 vols. (Paris: A. Colin, 1925-27), i, 10, 13.
Breaking the Ortelian Pattern / 69 6
Philippe Briet, Parallela geographiae veteris et novae, 3 vols. (Paris, 1647-49). Full bibliography in Mireille Pastoureau, Les Atlas frangais, xvie-xvne siecles: repertoire bibliographicjue et etude (Paris: Bibliotheque Nationale, 1984), 89-95; in her 'Les Atlas imp rimes en France avant 1700,' Imago mundi, 32 (1980), 45-76, here 64, she establishes that its popularity exceeded that of the small atlas of Pierre Duval cited in note 8, below. Examples of the enduring prestige of comparative atlases: Edme Mentelle, Geographic comparee, ou Analyze de la geographic ancienne et moderne des peuples de tons les pays et de tons les ages, 8 vols., with atlas (Paris, 1778-84); Etienne Andre Philippe de Pretot, Atlas universel: Pour I'etude de la geographic et de I'histoire ancienne et moderne (Paris, 1787); A. Arrowsmith, Orbis terrarum veteribus noti descriptio. A Comparative Atlas of Ancient and Modern Geography ... for the Use of Eton School (London, 1828); D.T. Ansted and C.G. Nicolay, An Atlas of Physical and Historical Geography (London, 1840?) (its only historical content is a comparative chart of ancient and modern geography); Alexander G. Findlay, Comparative Atlas of Ancient and Modern Geography (London, 1853); William Hughes, Popular Atlas of Comparative Geography Comprehending a Chronological Series of Maps (Based on Spruner's Hand-Atlas) (Philips' [sic] Historical Atlas) (London, n.d. [1869]) (not a comparative atlas in the normal sense, but an interesting illustration of 'comparative' used as a synonym for 'historical'); Philips' Modern School Atlas of Comparative Geography (London, 1913) (carrying this ancient practice right into the twentieth century). 7 Philippe de La Rue, La Terre sainte en six cartes geographiques (Paris: Mariette, 1651). The separate maps are in many early atlases. 8 Nicolas de La Mare (1639-1723), Traite de la police, ou Von trouve I'histoire de son etablissement etc. On y a joint une description historicjiie et topographique de Paris et huis plans graves, 4 vols., i (Paris, 1705), 67, 71, 75, 76, 78. He is sometimes called Delamare or de Lamare. The first volume is basically concerned with the factual underpinnings for the eight maps of Paris. See also Leon Vallee, Bibliotheciue nationale, Catalogue des plans de Paris et des cartes de Vile de France (Paris, 1908), which sets out the tangled bibliography of these very popular city plans without resolving it. Loose copies of maps 3-7, signed by Coquart (and 8 by de Per), are in the American Geographical Society Collection, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Nicolas de Per is often cited as author of all eight maps. For their appearance in his Atlas curieux, Suite de I'Atlas curieux, and Les beautes de la France, see Pastoureau, Les atlas franqais, 179-80, 195-6. On La Mare, see Francois Monnier, in Francois Bluche ed., Dictionnaire du Grand Siecle (Paris: Fayard, 1990),
jo I Walter A. Goffart
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10
11
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453-4. The reproach of combining imagination with facts has very limited weight when applied to the early modern period. Quite a few of the most venerable historical maps (e.g., the Exodus, the travels of Odysseus and Aeneas) were largely fictional in details; and purely geographical maps were often indebted to imagination as well. Another of the few works maintaining chronological order is Pierre Duval, Diverses cartes et tables pour la geographic andenne (Paris, 1665), in the section called 'Cartes geographiques dressees pour bien entendre les historiens .../ in other respects an unremarkable series of classical maps. Menso Alting, Descriptio agri Batavi et Frisii sen notitia Germaniae inferioris, 2 parts in i, F° (Amsterdam: Wetstein, 1697-1701). Alting's maps are partially reprinted in Bern. Schotanus a Sterringa, Uitbeelding der Heerlijkheit Friesland (Leeuwarden: Francois Halma, 1718) and F. Halma, ed., Tooneel der Vereenigde Nederlanden (Leeuwarden, 1725); Halma acquired only seven of the nine plates of Alting's part 2. A facsimile of Uitbeelding, ed. by by J.J. Kalma, was published by Theatrum Orbis Terrarum (Amsterdam, 1979). The broad meaning of Frisia is explained by Jacques Le Long Bibliotheque historique de la France, nouv. ed., 5 vols. (Paris, 1768-78), i, 35: 'Cette grande Frise repond aux Provinces-Unies d'aujourdhui, dont la partie meridionale, formee par 1'ancien Rhin, etoit seule de 1'ancienne Gaule ...' About Alting and his critics, see L.Ph.C. van den Bergh, Handboek der Middelnederlandse Geographic, 3d ed. by A.A. Beekman and H.J. Moerman (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1949), ix. Lotholz, 'Cellarius, Christoph (1638-1707),' Allgemeine deutsche Biographic, 4 (1876), 80-1; his reputation was earned by writing practical textbooks, promoting the improvement of Latin style, and supplying popular, small-size editions of the classics; J.F. Michaud, Biographie universelle, 7 (rpr Graz, Akademische Druck ..., 1968), 309-10. Cellarius's minor geography has a long, complicated publishing history: C. Cellarius, Nucleus geographiae antiquae et novae (Jena, 1676) = Geographia antiqua iuxta et nova (Jena, 1692) = Geographia antiqua, 6th ed. by Samuel Patrick (tot chartas ex maiori auctoris geographiae antiquae quot ad minorem hanc illustrandum requirebantur) (London, 1731). Patrick turned the work into a classical atlas; The British Library lists London reprints in 1745, 1764, 1782, 1786, 1790, 1802, 1812 (there were more); also Rome 1774. Cellarius's major geographic work is Notitia orbis antiqui sive geographia plenior, 2 vols. (Leipzig, 1701-6), 2d [and best] ed. by L. lo. Conrad Schwartz (Leipzig, 1731). On Cellarius and the medieval period, George Gordon, 'Medium
Breaking the Ortelian Pattern / 71
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14
15
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aevum and the Middle Ages/ Society for Pure English, Tract 19 (Oxford, 1925), 3-28; Lucie Varga, Das Schlagwort vom 'Finstere Mittelalter' (Baden bei Wien, 1932, rpr. Aalen, 1978) (the most comprehensive study); and Herbert Butterfield, Man on His Past: The Study of the History of Historical Scholarship (Boston: Beacon, 1960), 45-6. The stillborn medieval atlas forms part of the Appendix triplex notitiae orbis antiqui Christophori Cellarii (Leipzig, 1776), 25: Appendix in, Tabulae quaedam geographicae a Cellario in usum geographiae medii aevi descriptae.' The anonymous editor was well aware that, in 1776, these maps were mainly a memento of the great man. On Homann as the engraver, see Johan Georg Hager, (MJG Hager's) Geographischer Btichersaal, zum Nutzen und Vergnilgen erojfnet, 3 vols. (Chemnitz, 1766-78 [1764-78]) i, 380. On Kohler, see F.X. von Wegele, in Allgemeine deutsche Biographie, 16 (1882), 412-13. He moved to Gottingen in 1735. His longest work is (Wochentliche) Historische Munz-Belustigung, 22 vols. (Nuremberg, 1729-50 [1756]); each weekly issue features one or two coins or medals (i6th to i8th cent.), with an excellent engraving, description, and historical explanation. Johann David Kohler, Descriptio orbis antiqui in xliv tabulis exhibita (Nuremberg: Weigel, n.d. [1720]); and Kurze und griindliche Anleitung zu der alien und mittleren Geographic nebst xn. Land Chartgen (Compendium geographiae antiquae et mediae), parts 1-2 (Nuremberg, 1730-37), part 3, ed. Georg Andreas Will (Nuremberg, 1765). Delisle's medieval canon includes Tabula Delphinatus et vicinarum Regionum, distributa in Principatus, Comitatus, Baronias, &c cum iisdem nominibus quae in antiquis chartis, sub Principibus Delphinis (Paris, 1710), done to illustrate J.-P. Moret de Bourchenne de Valbonnais, Memoires pour servir a I'histoire de Dauphine sous les Dauphins de la Maison de la Tour du Pin (Paris, 1711); Orbis Romani descriptio sen divisio per themata ... post Heraclii tempora and Imperil orientalis sub Constantino Porphyrogenito ... descriptio (Paris, 1711), for Anselmo Banduri, ed., Imperium orientale sive antiquitates Constantinopolitanae, i (Paris, 1711) (part of the early collection of Byzantine writers usually called 'Byzantine du Louvre'). All three maps are common among Delisle map collections and atlases. Theatrum historicum ad annum Christi 400, 2 sheets; also in many atlases of Delisle's and many others (it was a very popular map). Separate text sheets, bound together as Remarques sur le Theatre historique pour Van 400 (Paris, 1705), were often pasted to the sides of the maps. Delisle, whose last name was inconsistently spelled in his
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18
19
20
lifetime (he himself varied), is often catalogued under Isle, Lisle, or L'Isle; BN Imp rimes adopts a different form from BN Cartes et plans. The form I adopt is a sensible basis for standardization. Mercure de France (May 1720), 127-33. The notes to Theatrum historicum, pars occ., contain a comment suggesting Delisle's (unrealized) intentions, 'Cette carte est accompagnee de quelques autres, qui serviront toutes ensembles a faire voir 1'etat du monde connu dans les differens temps.' Lombard Italy: Gasparo Beretti, Tabula Italiae medii aevi Graeco Langobardico Francici, accurante Societate Palatina, in Ludovico Muratori, ed., Rerum Italicorum scriptores, 10 (Milan 1727), facing col. i-ii of 'De Italia medii aevi dissertatio chorographica pro usu tabulae Italiae GraecoLangobardico-Francicae, ut a Graecis et Langobardis ad Carolum M. translatae ... auctore Anonymo Mediolanense' (coll. i-cccxxxvi). France: 'Carte de la France pour la fin du regne de Clovis et pour le Partage des ses Etats entre ses Enfans par Henri Liebaux geographe 1728' in G. Daniel, Histoire de France depuis I'etablissement de la monarchie francaise dans les Gaules, nouv. ed. 'enrichie de cartes geographiques/ 10 vols. (Paris: Mariette, 1729), I, i. Friedrich Zollmann, Ducatus Saxonliae] super[ioris] prout ipsius conditio fuit ab Anno 1000 usque ad 1400, sive intra saeculum x et XV, ex historia maxime mediae aetatis emtus and Ducatus Saxonliae] super[ioris] ut status ipsius antiquissimus fuit, per saecula x priora, scilicet post Christum natum ad A. 1000 usque, ex historiae Saxonicae munumentis compilatus (Nuremberg: Homann Heirs, 1732); Joachim Berward Lauenstein, 'Dioecesis Hildesheimensis medii aevi tabula ... Joach. Berward Lauenstein ad S. Michael in Hildesh. Pastor,' in Specimen geographiae medii aevi diplomaticae, hoc est descriptio dioecesis Hildesheimensis per antiques suos pagos (Hildesheim, 1745); C. J. Kremer, 'Herzogtum der Rheinfranken in seine Gauen abgetheilt mit den angranzenden Provinzen/ in Kremer, Geschichte der Rheinischen Franziens unter den Merovingischen und Karolingischen Konigen bis an das Jahr 843 (als eine Grundlage zur Pfalzischen Staats-Geschichte), ed. Andreas Lamey (Mannheim, 1778). Johannes Tomka Szaszky, Parvus atlas Hungariae (Bratislava, 1750-51), is cited as a work in nineteen maps by Johannes Dorflinger, Osterreichischer Kartographie, 2 vols. (Vienna, 1984-86), i, 60; only thirteen maps are listed and titles supplied in Karel Kuchaf, Mapova. Sbirka B. P. Molla v Universitni KnihovnS v BrnS (Prague, 1959), 316. The one version accessible to me was the posthumous abridgment, Tomka Szaszky, Introductio in geographiam Hungariae antiqui et medii aevi ... e veteribus monumentis eruta et VI tabulis illustrata (Bratislava, 1781).
Breaking the Ortelian Pattern / 73
21 22
23
24
25
26
Bratislava - in German, Pressbourg - was the capital of Hungary at the time. Christian Juncker, Anleitung zu der Geographic der mittleren Zeiten (Jena, 1712). Summary in Hager, Geographischer Buchersaal, i, 57-73. For information on Hase, see, Neue deutsche Biographic, 8 (Berlin, 1968), 21-2; C. Sandier, 'Die homannischen Erben,' Zeitschrift fur wissenschaftliche Geographic, 7 (1890), 333-55, 418-48 [reprinted Ada Cartographica, 5 (1969), 370-423], here 386, 403, 412-17; and especially Wilhelm Bonacker, 'Johann Matthias Haas (1684-1742), sein Leben, seine Schriften und Karten/ Historische Verein fur Schwaben, Zeitschrift, 59-60 (1967), 271-309. Hase's outline for the atlas is in his Phosphorus historiarum, vel prodromus theatri summorum imperiorum (Leipzig, n.d. [1739]); the Preface and commencement address are unpaged. Hase's historical maps became best known in the omnibus Atlas historicus, comprehendens imperia maxima sen monarchias Orbis Antique historice, chronologice et geographice repraesentatus (Nuremberg: Homann Heirs 1750). It was reissued by Ch. Fembo, owner of Homann Verlag, as Historische Atlas mil chronologische Tabellen (1813-14). The historical atlas embodying Hase's major contribution to the genre is Historiae universalis politicae quantum ad eius partem I ac u. Idea plane nova et legitima tractationem summorum imperiorum exhibens ... in lectionum academicarum usum, ed. A.G. Boehmius (Nuremberg, 1743). R. P. Julien, Nouveau catalogue de cartes geographiques et topographiques (Paris, 1763), 65-6, may be right to list the chronological tables and 28 maps under 1742. For the received date of 1743, see Sandier, 'Homannischen Erben,' 403; the same date appears in copies of the small atlas at Harvard and the Bibliotheque Nationale and the British Library's copy of Hase, Atlas historicus. Hase's summary of the contents of part 3 subdivides the imperia into antiquiora and recentiora, on the understanding that medieval empires are in the second category. Historia universalis, plate no. 11 (the empire of Justinian) and plates nos. 17-21 (the Romano-Germanic Empire at various times). Hase compiled a separate, larger-scale collection for the Romano-Germanic Empire, called Mappae vn. geographicae pro illustrandis totidem periodis historiae Germaniae (Nuremberg, 1750). F.X. van Wegele, Gcschichte der deutschen Historiographie seit dem Auftretten des Humanismus (MunichBerlin, 1885), 562, credits him with the first attempt at an atlas of German history. Historia universalis, plates nos. 12-16 (Islamic empires at various times), plates nos. 22-7 (Mongol and Ottoman empires).
74 / Walter A. Goffart 27 Atlas complet des revolutions que le globe de la terre a eprouvees depuis le commencement du monde jusqu'a present (en 66 cartes gravees toutes pareilles) (n.p., n.d.) (Bibliotheque nationale, Cartes et plans, Ge.CC.i37o). The BN card catalogue offers the date 1747. This atlas, though unique and apparently unpublished, consists of printed base maps with manuscript additions depicting boundaries in bold colours. The term 'revolution' used here (and widely at the time) has a weaker sense that it shed after 1789. It means little more than Vicissitude' or 'change.' Mary Sponberg Pedley, Bel et Utile: The Work of the Robert de Vaugondy Family ofMapmaKruse or Quin stand at a long distance from Ortelius's Parergon. Thekers (Tring, Herts.: Map Collector tions, 1992), 233, because of inadequate evidence, rejects the common practice of attributing this draft to Gilles Robert. 28 Pierre Joseph Francois Luneau de Boisgermain (1732-1801), Atlas historique, ou cartes des parties principales du globe terrestre, assujetties aux revolutions seculaires qu'il a eprouvees (Paris, 1760-61). The fullest information about Luneau's project is provided by the review of Journal de Trevoux (Jan. 1761), 175-6. The surviving map is recorded in Murphy D. Smith, 'Realms of Gold': Catalogue of Maps [and Atlases] in the Library of the American Philosophical Society, American Philosophical Society, Memoirs, 195 (Philadelphia, 1991), no. 65. I wish it were more certain that this map belongs to Luneau's planned set of 20 (its date, 1765, is too late, but this is not a decisive obstacle). The three maps that were actually printed (ca. 1760) are said to have been included in Luneau's later geography books. Copies of these in Paris and London do not contain maps. On his career, see Louis Pichard in Dictionnaire des lettres frangaises. Le Dix-Huitieme siecle, 2 vols (Paris: Fayard, 1960), n, 142. 29 Dupre, Les revolutions de I'univers of/rant les divisions politiques des differentes regions ... depuis la dispersion des Enfans de Noe jusqu'a la reunion de la Lorraine a la France, divisees en 30 intervales et representees en Soixante cartes (Paris: Lattre, 1763, rpr 1775). The copies at Cambridge and Gottingen University Library have a title page naming Dupre, as though it were a full and adequate name, which just possibly it is. The other copies I've seen tend to lack title pages. Each map specifies, 'Dressee sur les Memoires de M. D*P** Par Michel Picaud de Nantes.' Privilege granted to D***, July 1763. Dupre is evidently related to D*P**. The map occupies two folios, as in the 17403 Paris draft; I cannot recall seeing a copy, however, in which the two leaves are pasted to each other. In the Royal Geographical Society copy, the western and eastern sheets are bound successively; I think this is usual practice. The copy offered for £2 IDS by a Francis Ed-
Breaking the Ortelian Pattern / 75
30
31
32 33
34
35
36
wards catalogue of 1929 was probably acquired by the Royal Geographical Society, whose acquisition is dated May of that year. Philippe de Pretot's main work is an Atlas universel (1787), cited note 6, above. It combines the plans of the geographic and the comparative atlases, i.e., country by country sequence with, for each, a limited selection of ancient and modern maps. Neither the choice of subject nor the handling of time has any affinity to the Dupre atlas. The sheets were also folded, bound, and marketed as a little book ('On trouve chez Cavelier, Libraire, rue St. Jacques, des Exemplaires du vol. m-i2 [called Les revolutions de I'univers].' The same had been done to Delisle's Remarques sur le Theatre historique pour Van 400, as observed in note 16, above. Another link with the Theatrum is that there are little hemispheres in the right and left hand corners of Picaud's base map. For a largely descriptive but occasionally critical review of the Dupre atlas, see Journal de Trevoux (January 1764), 197-259. Review of the Le Sage atlas (cited below, in note 46) in Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung (Halle) no. 346, 4 (Dec. 1804), 522. For a similar view, see G. Hassel, in Allgemeine geographische Ephemeriden, new series, 15 (1825), 143-4. G. A. Rizzi-Zannoni, Atlas historique et geographique de la France ancienne et moderne (Paris: Desnos, 1764, revised 1765). The publication history is complex, especially in its beginnings. Desnos used Zannoni's work as the basis for marketing several works with somewhat different titles and close to identical contents (not all may survive). As a small example, according to different documents emanating from Zannoni he was in England, Naples, North America, as well as Paris in 1764. Aldo Blessich, 'Un geografo italiano del secolo xvin. Giovanni Antonio Rizzi Zannoni (1736-1814),' Societa geografica italiana, Bolletino, ser. 3 vol. 11 (Yr. 32, vol. 35) (1898) 12-23, 56-69, 183-203, 453-66, 523-37, is somewhat credulous but informative; Josef Konvitz, in Cartography in France. Science, Engineering, and Statecraft (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987), 35, gives the reasons for Zannoni's hasty departure from France. A forthcoming work on Neapolitan cartography by Vladimiro Valerio promises to unravel Zannoni's biography. Gaspard de Fontanieu, an intendant, fancier of French history, and collector of historical materials, particularly about his home province of Dauphine, was much involved in the Zannoni atlas. It was prepared in his library and dedicated to him. Zannoni also acted as assistant and 'front man' for the abbe Ferdinand Galiani in the prepa-
76 / Walter A. Goffart ration of a 1769 map of the Two Sicilies, and for Prince J.A. Jablonowsky and a 1772 map of Poland. These eminent personages either recognized the magnitude of the professional cartographer's contribution or thought it unseemly that their signatures should appear on maps. The same relationship may have been involved in ZannoniDesnos atlas. The Fontanieu papers at the Bibliotheque Nationale may repay investigation. 37 For Alting, see note 9, above; Hase's German set, note 24, above; John Andrews, Historical Atlas of England Ancient and Modern ...from the Deluge to the Present Time (London, 1797). There is also the Hungarian collection cited in note 20, above. 38 F.X. von Wegele, 'Gatterer, Johann Christoph (1727-99),' Allgemeine deutsche Biographie, 8 (1878), 410-13, is unreliable in its judgment of Gatterer's achievement and makes no reference to his geographical interests. There is an unusually long entry for Gatterer in Deutsches biographisches Archiv (Munich: K.G. Saur, 1982), fiche 370, frames 324-90. See also Butterfield, Man on His Past, 42-9, and the next footnote. Gatterer took over the history chair in 1759. To judge from holdings in North American libraries, Gatterer's forte in auxiliary disciplines was diplomatic (the study of charters). For an essay of his on maps (Landkarte), see the 'Vorrede' to Algemeine Welt-Historie von Anbeginn der Welt bis auf gegenivartige Zeit, 57 vols. (Halle, 1744-91), xxxm (unpaged preface). See also Arthur Kuhn, Die Neugestaltung der deutschen Geographic im 18. Jahrhundert. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Geographie an der Georgia Augusta zu Gottingen (Quellen und Forschungen zur Geschichte der Geographie und Volkerkunde, 5); (Leipzig, 1939). 39 On the conception and goals of Gatterer's maps, see Historisches Journal von Mitglieder der koniglichen historischen Instituts zu Gottingen, 8 (1776), iv. Stuck, 17-19, and the critical review by Christian Kruse, 'Probe der Gattererschen Charten zur Geschichte der Volkerwanderung, mit Anmerkungen fur diejenigen welche diese Charte mit meinem historischen Atlas zu vergleiche wunsche/ Allgemeine geographische Ephemeriden, 16 no. 4 (April 1805), 377-99. Kruse's numbering, including map xvni, relates to the twenty-four-map medieval collection only. The map published in the 1805 journal, like the hemispheres surviving at Gottingen University Library are marked ^d edition 1789.' Some of the maps of 1776, but without the historical atlas, are found in two very rare collections bearing his name: J.C. Gatterer, 31 Landkarten von Gatterer zum Gebrauch seiner geographischen Vorlesungen (Gottingen, 1775), and Methodische Landkarten (n.p., n.d. [Gottingen, ca. 1776]). For additional descriptions of his maps, see
Breaking the Ortelian Pattern / 77 E.G. Woltersdorf, Repertorium der Land- u. Seekarte, Th. i (Vienna, 1813), 144-5, and his own Abriss der Geographic (Gottingen, 1775-78), xiii-xvii. No maps are mentioned in the impressively full bibliography of Gatterer's works given by G.C. Hamberger and J.G. Meusel, Das gelehrte Teutschland oder Lexicon der jetzt lebenden teutsche Schriftsteller, 5th ed. (Lemgo, 1796; rpr Hildesheim, 1965), n, 490-4. 40 The best guide for all this is Gatterer, Abriss, cited in note 39, above. There had been thematic maps before, even on themes close to Gatterer's three; what was new was for them to penetrate into a historical atlas. Concerning Eurocentricity, it seems clear that Gatterer and his predecessors were more sensitive in medieval history to foreigners impinging on Europe than to the course of developments within the continent; they were not necessarily fascinated by distant lands for their own sake. 41 For a sample of the misconceptions current not very long ago, see the anonymous assessment in International Committee of Historical Sciences, Commission for Historical Geography, Catalogus mapparum geographicarum ad historiam pertinentium (Warsaw, 1933), x: 'Les deux siecles suivants ont aussi leur importance. On s'est essaye a publier de grands atlas historiques scientifiques et des atlas scolaires. Ce qui caracterise le plus nettement les ceuvres de cette periode est le fait que Ton entourait les cartes historiques d'un important appareil de tableaux synchroniques ou genealogiques. On peut considerer le grand atlas de Le Sage (Paris, 1807) comme le couronnement de cette serie d'ceuvres.' These views are exceedingly shaky. The Le Sage atlas - in fact published first in London, 1801, and in Paris, 1803-4 - was a new departure (notes 46-7, below), and not the culmination of earlier tendencies. Some eighteenth-century atlases, usually classical and very conventional, had accompanying tables; but none of the pioneering works that have been featured here (until Le Sage) had a frame of supplementary apparatus. 42 On Napoleon, frontier changes, and cartography, see Emil Wisotzki, Zeitstrb'mungen in der Geographie (Leipzig, 1897), 258, and 192, 209, 214, 415; and W.-D. Grim, 'Schulatlas,' Lexikon zur Geschichte der Kartographie, 2 vols. (Vienna: Deuticke, 1986), n, 718. On the preponderance in eighteenth-century geography of boundaries and other political elements, see Hanno Beck, Geographie: Europaische Entwicklung (Orbis Academicus 11/16; Freiburg and Munich, 1973), 135. Edme Mentelle's reaction to revolutionary changes is described by Leslie R. Marchant, 'Edmunde [sic] Mentelle and Francois-Simon Mentelle/ Geographers Biobibliographical Studies, ed. T.W. Freeman, 11 (London, New York,
78 / Walter A. Goffart
43
44
45
46
47
1987), 93-103, here 99. See also G.B. Depping, in Michaud, Biographic universelle, 27 (rpr Graz 1968), 658-61, and J.M. Querard, La France litteraire, 12 vols. (Paris, 1827-64), vi, 46-9. An impressive illustration, because from outside France, occurs in a Weimar atlas of Friedrich Benicken, ca. 1820 (n. 49, below), in whose titles 'neueste Geschichte' is distinguished from 'neuere.' Christian Kruse, a slightly earlier German observer (next footnote), commented: 'Allein seit der Franzosischen Revolution hat die historische Geographic mancher Europaischen Lander auf einmal mehr Stoff erhalten, als vorher in Ganzen Jahrhunderten/ A similar, but clearly hostile opinion: C.V. Lavoisne, Complete Genealogical, Historical, Chronological, and Geographical Atlas ... according to the plan ofLe Sage Greatly Improved (London, 1814), p. 7: (the French Revolution) 'an epocha ... in which the ancient system of the continent has been subverted, old governments have been torn up by the roots, new ones planted, and a change induced in the whole aspect of political affairs, little if at all inferior to those which were effected, upward of thirteen centuries back, by the overwhelming torrent of Gothic barbarism/ For publication information, see the next footnote. On Kruse's life, see Valentin Parisot, 'Kruse (Chretien ou Karsten)/ in Michaud, Biographie universelle, 22 (rpr Graz, 1968), 219-22; Mertzenbecher, in Allgemeine deutsche Biographie, 17 (1883), 262; Deutsches biographisches Archiv, fiche 716, frames 268-85; K. Schwartz, in J.S. Ersch and J.G. Gruber, Allgemeine Encyclopadie der Wissenschaften und Ktinste, 2te Section, 40. Theil (Leipzig, 1887), 127. Christian Kruse, Atlas und Tabellen zum Ubersicht der Geschichte aller europaischen Lander und Staaten von ihrer ersten Bevolkerung an bis zu den neuesten Zeiten ist ed. (Leipzig, 1802-18); an alternative, shorter title is Atlas zum Ubersicht der Geschichte aller europaischen Lander und Staaten. The maps were issued in batches of four from 1802 to 1810 and completed with five in 1818; A.D. 400 to 700 became available in 1802, 800-1100 in 1804, and 1200-1500 in 1810. The 6th and last ed., published by Kruse's son Friedrich, professor of history at Tartu, appeared in 1841. For details about Las Cases and his atlas, see my studies 'The Map of the Barbarian Invasions: A Preliminary Report,' Nottingham Medieval Studies, 32 (1988), 49-64, and 'The Map of the Barbarian Invasions: A Longer Look/ The Culture of Christendom. Essays in Medieval History in Memory of Denis L. T. Bethell (London: Hambledon Press, 1993), 1-27. Goffart, 'Longer Look/ 10-11; see also note 41, above. Las Cases's layout, though not wholly unprecedented, was very rare until he gave
Breaking the Ortelian Pattern / 79 it currency. Courtalou, Atlas elementaire ... de I'Empire d'Allemagne (Paris, 1774; 2d ed. by E. Mentelle and P.G. Chanlaire, 1798) may have been his model but this needs further study. The great Karl Spruner, who despised Las Cases's atlas, gave his impeccably scholarly Historisch-geographisch Hand-Atlas (Gotha, 1837-46) the self-same structure. Equally rares is Las Cases's announcement of the matchless pedagogical value of his work; an extract from an abridgement of 1829 typifies many other such statements, 'La methode de Lesage, adoptee par le conseil royal et recommandee par le ministre de 1'instruction publique, exclut toute theorie, toute abstraction, et se reduit en quelque sorte a une simple pratique: aussi est-ce ce qui la met a la portee de tous les ages, de toutes les intelligences, et 1'approprie speciallement a 1'instruction primaire. C'est le mecanisme le plus simple, le mieux ordonne, souvent meme elegant. La tout arrive a 1'esprit et se loge dans la memoire par les yeux a 1'aide de lineamens, de contours et de couleurs qui introduisent la clarte, ecartent la confusion et assurent d'inneffacables souvenirs' etc.: Atlas elementaire geographique, historique, chronologicjue et genealogique, ou Choix des cartes les plus classiques du grand atlas de A. Le Sage (Paris: Hachette, 1829), 3. 48 Goffart, 'Longer Look,' 11-13 (lists some precedents for maps with tracks). Las Cases puzzles us by tracing the campaigns of Berwick et al. in Spain. Helped by reference books, one learns that the peninsular theatre in the War of the Spanish Succession (1701-13) is portrayed. Posterity, especially in the English-speaking world, has preferred to associate this war with the exploits - much farther north - of the Duke of Marlborough. (Napoleon's Peninsular War, which might have made Berwick topical, was still years away when Las Cases made his selection.) The tracks of explorers, shown by Las Cases in Africa and on a world map, were already charted by sixteenth-century map makers; tracing the campaigns of modern armies came much later. 49 On the Weimar Institute, often slighted by histories of cartography, see H. Arnhold, 'Geographisches Institut Weimar/ Lexikon zur Geschichte der Kartographie, i, 259-60. F.W. Benicken, Historischer Schulatlas oder Uebersicht der allgemeinen Weltgeschichte (Weimar, 1820); and his Historischer Hand-Atlas zur Versinnlichung der allgemeinen Geschichte aller Voelker und Staaten nebst Zeitrechnungstafeln tiber alte, mittlere, neuere, und neueste Geschichte (Weimar, 1820-24). On Falger, see Liutpold Dussler, Die Incunabeln der deutschen Lithographic, 1796-1821 (1925, rpr Heidelberg: R. Weissbach, 1955), 42-3, and R. Armin Winkler, Die Friihzeit der deutschen Lithographic. Katalog der Bilddrucke von 1796-1821 (Materialen zur Kunst des 19. Jahrhunderts, 16; Munich, 1975), 13-14,
8o / Walter A. Goffart
50
51
52
53
54
73-6 no. 203. The earliest lithographed atlases are mentioned by Walter W. Ristow, 'Lithography and Maps, 1796-1850,' in David Woodward, ed., Five Centuries of Map Printing (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1975), 77-112, here 80 (the process of engraving on stone), 95 (where the earliest German lithographed atlas is dated 1829), and by David Woodward, The Techniques of Atlas Making,' Map Collector, 18 (1982), 2-11, here 8 in which a work published in Paris in 1823 is thought to be the earliest lithographed atlas. "Lithographisch abgedruckt' is clearly announced in Johann Christoph Aretin, Baierns groftter Umfang unter den Agilolfingern, Carolingern, Welfen and Wittelbachern (Munich, 1809), with four maps (more a political pamphlet than a scholarly atlas). Friedrich August Pischon, history teacher at the Prussian Royal Kadettenhause, in 'Vorwort' (1843) to Rudolph von Wedell, Historischgeographischer Hand-Atlas (Berlin, 1843-49), 2- Pischon does not spell out what he thinks was wrong. The combination had been hesitantly initiated in the atlas accompanying Conrad Malte-Brun (in Danish, Malthe Conrad Bruun), Precis de geographic universelk (Paris, 1810-12). The seventy-five accompanying maps were prepared to Malte-Brun's order by P. Lapie and J.-B. Poirson. Benicken owes this modern emphasis to his guide, Leonard v. Dresch, Uebersicht der allgemeinen politischen Geschichte, insbesondere Europens (Weimar, 1814-16; 2d ed., 1822-23), whose divisions are carried over directly to both atlases. Dresch published the modern (third) part of his work before parts 1-2. On Quin (1794-1828), the Dictionary of National Biography, xvi, 548, provides little more than a curriculum vitae: MA. Oxon., 1820; called to the bar, 1823; a barrister of Lincoln's Inn. (The DNB's date of 1840 for the Atlas must be a misprint.) First edition of his An Historical Atlas (London, 1830), 22 maps, incl. 6 folded, was reprinted in London, 1836. The early maps are dated 1828, suggesting that publication was begun in Quin's lifetime (the engraver is Sidney Hall). A new edition, with maps redrawn by William Hughes, was issued London, 1846, and reprinted to 1856. Edward Quin, Universal History from the Creation (London, 1838), may be the narrative minus maps, whereas Atlas of Universal History (London and Glasgow, 1856, 1859) is the original Quin version without text and with a new final map for 1856. The u.s. Military Academy, West Point, records the variant title, Atlas of Ancient and Medieval History (London and Glasgow, n.d.). I do not claim to have fully sorted out this bibliography. On Hughes, see
Breaking the Ortelian Pattern / 81
55
56
57
58
59
J.E. Vaughan, 'William Hughes, 1818-1876,' Geographers Biobibliographical Studies, ed. T.W. Freeman, 9 (London, New York, 1985), 49-60. Emma Willard (1787-1870), Atlas to Accompany a System of Universal History (Hartford, 1836). On her London visit, see Alma Lutz, Emma Willard, Pioneer Educator of American Women (Boston: Beacon Press, 1964), 80-5 (Lutz also has much information on her geographical publications and teaching). For the hand painted copy, see John D. Palm, 'Historical Maps/ undated MS at the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek. The fly-leaf has the author's dedication in Dutch, 1839; Palm itself is a Dutch name. Enthusiasm for Quin's atlas was expressed by two participants at the Editorial Conference of 1993 even before my talk [Editor's note: see also William Dean's paper (140) for an enthusiastic endorsement of Quin's work as creative cartography]; six weeks later, a map librarian at New York Public Library delivered in my hearing a spontaneous testimonial to Quin. Approval was not always unanimous. In a precocious and valuable survey of historical atlases (rather loosely defined), G. Mees, Historische Atlas van Noord-Nederland, 15 fasc., 1851-61 (Rotterdam, 1865), 16, asks rhetorically why anyone would disburse forty-two florins for such an atlas. The copy belonging to the American Geographical Society Collection, Milwaukee, was acquired for $7 in 1943. Mees complains that the scale of the maps is very small. It would be hard to consult Quin's atlas as though it were a normal historical collection even of about 1830. Quotation from Quin, Historical Atlas, i. The clouds are basically stable in the four maps for Constantine, 395, 476, and Charlemagne; they recede to reveal Iceland in the map for the Dissolution of Charlemagne's empire. Padua. Seminario vescovile, Tabulae geographicae (Padua, 1699): its section of 'literary' geography (one of four) announces its contents as being 'ad veteres turn historicos, turn poetas illustrandos.' Duval, Diverses cartes et tables (note 8, above), 'Cartes geographiques dressees pour bien entendre les historiens ...' Quin's ring of clouds formed a prominent outer boundary that, unlike almost all borders in earlier productions of this kind, could be definitely seen to move from panel to panel. The draft Atlas complet des revolutions and its successors may well have sought to dramatize historical change on a frame-by-frame basis through the movement of internal boundaries. Quin's clouds, however, go beyond hints to a clearly visible progression.
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MARY SPONBERG PEDLEY 33
'Commode, complet, uniforme, et suivi': Problems in Atlas Editing in Enlightenment France
To understand aspects of atlas editing in eighteenth-century France, we should first consider matters of language, of economics, and of the demands of science. By doing so, we will discover that the infrastructure of the book business, the print trade, and the map trade prevented the development of an atlas type which could be described, following James Akerman's paper, as having graphic exposition, standardization and uniformity, unity of effort and thought. Within this context, we will view with some surprise the publication of what might have superficially seemed 'just another atlas/ for it will be seen to have challenged eighteenth-century expectations in its striving to follow principles of standardization. This is the Atlas universel by Gilles and Didier Robert de Vaugondy, published in 1757 and owned by a bookseller/printer (libraire-imprimeur) named Antoine Boudet. While setting a standard for atlas production in Enlightenment Paris, this atlas was an anomaly in its time. Its publication marked an important shift from engravers publishing atlases to geographers publishing their own work. First, let us consider the question of language. The verbs 'editer' and 'publier' were not used in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century France to describe the functions of what we would today describe as the editor of an atlas. In fact, the word editer did not come into use until 1784-1 The more common phrase to describe publishing was 'mettre au jour' - to bring to light - since the men and women who 'published' many or even most of the atlases of this period did exactly that: provided much needed capital which brought manuscript maps to light through printing. Other words used in the titles or prefaces of atlases include 'rassembler' (to gather together) or Latin 'direxit' (guided, directed) or 'excudit' (literally, hammered out; brought out); again, they
84 / Mary Sponberg Pedley all in some way meant 'paid for/ whether for the collecting of other people's work or for the engraving and printing of other people's work. As we look over the period from the seventeenth through to the mid-eighteenth century in France, we find that the 'publishers' of atlases were usually print engravers (graveurs) or print sellers (marchands d'estampes). The other groups of booksellers/printers only become heavily involved with atlas production before 1630 and after 1750. Whatever the chronology, both groups of printers, by the diversity of their own businesses, had accumulated sufficient capital to risk investment in productions as costly as atlases. Whether they exerted or even wanted to exert editorial control is not entirely clear; their impulse was to amass a sufficient quantity of maps to cover an area large enough to attract enough buyers to pay for the collection process. Because geographers were not centrally involved in any planning of these atlases, editorial vision and coherence were often lacking. In fact, atlases really were less a matter of who produced them than of who bought them. In the most elementary definition of 'atlas' used by Mireille Pastoureau in her Les Atlas franqais, XVle-XVIle siecles, an atlas is a book of maps with a title page and a table of contents.2 These textual pages, usually printed from a letter press, did not necessarily bear any relationship to the maps within an atlas. It was not unusual to find that the buyer himself or herself chose the maps for an atlas. Typical of the period is the sales catalogue for the personal library of Guillaume de Malesherbes, minister of state under Louis xv. As Directeur de la Librairie, he was intimately connected with the print and book trade in Paris and thus might be expected to show a discerning taste in his library. Of the nine atlases listed in Malesherbes' massive bibliotheque, there are three atlases made-to-order, one marine atlas (incorporating the Neptune Oriental of d'Apres Mannevillette), one Dutch children's atlas, one atlas of ancient history (no author mentioned), one atlas by Grenet (maps by Bonne), and the Atlas universel by Robert de Vaugondy; but by far the largest is the eleven volume atlas which was formed by Malesherbes himself.3 Yet not all buyers exhibited Malesherbes' care. A map dealer in Amsterdam bitterly described his colleague Pierre Mortier's thriving trade thus: 'And it's no wonder he does well; he'll sell maps under any name the buyer wants: Delisle's name in Germany; Sanson in England; De Per in Poland and Italy.'4 While this comment may stem from professional jealousy, it does give us a glimpse of how buyers were perceived by sellers, and a discerning eye does not seem to be among
Problems in Atlas Editing in Enlightenment France / 85 their characteristics. The results of their selection could be an assortment of maps, widely varied in style, date, and geographical coverage. Such varied practices of compilation and publication lead to a certain unreliability in modern catalogue descriptions. A reader in a modern map room should not be too surprised, when having ordered Jaillot's Atlas Nouveau of 1690, presumably published in Paris, the elephant folio volume turns out to be the Dutch edition, a copy or counterfeit published by Covens and Mortier in Amsterdam. Further, the manuscript table of contents reveals it to be a true atlas factice or made to order atlas. Indeed, it has a full complement of Jaillot/Sanson maps, but also includes maps as late as a reduction of Richard Pococke's map of Egypt of 1743. Such atlas making technique is not just a Dutch phenomenon. Similar collections were made in Paris in the eighteenth century, for example by Roch-Joseph Julien, whose Theatre du Monde in two volumes in the Clements library is a collection of French, Dutch, and German maps, representing every geographer from Jaillot and Sanson at the end of the seventeenth century, to Philippe Buache, Robert de Vaugondy, the German Matthew Seutter, and the Dutch Ottens family in the middle of the eighteenth century. It is not surprising to learn from the inscription on the blank table of contents that Julien ran a map store in Paris, where he sold all the maps found in this atlas. But he did not act as an editor for these atlases. The Theatre du Monde in the Clements is quite different in contents from that found in the Royal Geographical Society of London. It was the buyer who made the difference. Given these facts, we might ask if there existed a larger vision of 'atlas' in this period. The hallmarks of the reigns of Louis xiv and Louis xv were centralization, organization, scientific and literary creation, and enlightenment. We might have expected atlas making to be elevated to the grand scale of Diderot and d'Alembert's Encyclopedic, Buffon's Histoire naturelle, and Cassini's Carte de France. There was certainly no lack of cartographic talent. The advances in map making during the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries are legion, based on advances in astronomy, in geographical discovery, and the more accurate determination of longitude. Excitement generated among cartographers and surveyors was unprecedented, and new maps abounded. French geographers such as Guillaume Delisle, Philippe Buache, and Jean Baptiste Bourguignon d'Anville made significant contributions to the cartographic stockpile. They used all available sources, cartographical, astronomical, and textual, to produce maps which were geographically 'accurate' (especially Delisle), thematic maps which .
86 / Mary Sponberg Pedley incorporated statistical information in a graphic way (Buache), or analyzed ancient sources to produce more accurate pictures of antiquity (d'Anville). Yet not one of these cartographic luminaries undertook to produce an atlas. The demands of science sufficiently occupied their time. It fell to geographers of the second rank, such as Gilles and Didier Robert de Vaugondy, Rigobert Bonne, Giovanni Battista Rizzi-Zannoni, to contribute to atlases which were published (that is, financially underwritten), either by other geographer-turned-publishers, like Julien or Louis Charles Desnos, or by engraver-turned publishers, like Jean Lattre, or book dealers like Antoine Boudet. This leaves us with an image of the foremost cartographers who would not make atlases, and the lesser cartographers who could not, at least not without financial help. In the end, help came from outside the geographical community; the reasons for this will be examined next. To find the roots of the delay in the development of the French atlas we need to return to seventeenth-century France, and Paris in particular. There we will see that the design and publication of atlases was dominated by non-geographers, from the early seventeenth century until the third quarter of the eighteenth century. The Seventeenth Century The first French atlas maker was Maurice Bouguereau, a bookseller/ printer in Tours at the very end of the sixteenth century. His atlas of France, Le Theatre Frangois (1594), is rightly credited with being the first French atlas, a symbol of national unity under the new leadership of Henri iv. Bouguereau produced his atlas with the graphic help of Gabriel Tavernier, an emigre engraver, by copying maps mostly from Ortelius and Mercator.5 As the Royal Court moved to Paris, so did the plates for Le Theatre Frangois as they passed to Jean Le Clerc, (d. 1621/22) a bookseller/ printer who had originally worked for Bouguereau. Le Clerc added new plates to Bougeureau's work, many of them compiled by a French cartographer, Damien de Templeaux, and re-titled the work Le Theatre geographique de France. Le Clerc explained the slowness and costliness of atlas production. The privilege for his atlas was granted in 1619, but the atlas did not appear until 1632; Le Clerc apologized for the delay in the preface: 'consultation with mathematicians, and geographers, the difficulty in recruiting engravers, and the imposing expenses occasioned by the project' all contributed to its tardiness.6
Problems in Atlas Editing in Enlightenment France / 87 This was the last time that a bookseller/printer invested money in atlases. The plates of Le Clerc's Theatre geographique were bought by Jean Boisseau, a colourer of maps (enlumineur des cartes) and de facto print seller. He, too, added to the plates of Le Clerc and Bougeureau to produce his atlases, though his more significant production is the Topographic frangaise, a collection of views, plans, and sieges by the engineer Claude de Chatillon.7 Le Clerc and Boisseau further maintained their connection with the original Bouguereau atlas by selling and exchanging maps with the son of Bouguereau's engraver, Melchior Tavernier (1594-1665), also an engraver and in addition a print seller. Tavernier not only sold maps from the Theatre frangais but also imported Dutch maps and championed the work of French military engineers. His goals were patriotic as well as commercial; in the text of a dedication of a map to Richelieu, (Italy, 1638), he said that he wanted to show 'that we can do in France what foreigners are providing us with now ... and what we can only get from them/ Yet he, too, encountered the increasingly familiar financial burden of the atlas enterprise: 'up until now in France no one has bothered or wanted to spend the money necessary for the engraving of maps, nor taken the long time such work demands, the fruit of it being so small and so inconsiderable; nevertheless, that hasn't stopped me from making the effort now and again to give the public some pieces of geography.'8 Tavernier no doubt felt some competition from one of the military engineers he knew well in Paris, Christophe Tassin, one of the few geographers who published his own atlases. In the Tassin atlases, we at last encounter what both Akerman and Pastoureau agree is a unified style. But it is uncertain where his capital came from to publish his own work. Archival sources indicate that he was also a print seller, for in 1644 he sold all his plates, his press, and many prints (not maps) to fellow print sellers Antoine de Per and Nicolas Berey.9 Military engineers like Tassin were new players in the field of atlas production and map publication. The army was really the only place at this time where one could be formally trained in the surveying and drafting of plans. Besides Tassin, the other military engineer dominating the seventeenth century was Nicolas Sanson (1600-1667). Melchior Tavernier 'discovered' and encouraged Sanson after seeing the latter's early work on ancient Gaul, and Sanson became one of Tavernier's group of engineer-cartographers. Sanson, from Abbeville, north of Paris, readily supplied Tavernier with maps until he discovered that Tavernier was signing his own name to these maps.
88 / Mary Sponberg Pedley Understandably furious, Sanson came to Paris in 1640 to defend his interests.10 After arriving in Paris, Sanson tried to succeed on his own as a map publisher. The sale of his geographical tables helped in this, and he became a popular teacher of geography to the nobility, even receiving support from the government for some of his mapping enterprises. Practical aid came from his three sons, Nicolas, Guillaume, and Adrien. When Nicolas, the eldest, was killed during the Fronde, Sanson turned to Pierre Mariette for the financial aid necessary to produce the first completely French world atlas, and later atlases of Europe, Asia, Africa, and America. Pierre Mariette (1602-1667), engraver and print seller, had already bought Melchior Tavernier's stock in 1644 and soon became the major print seller in Paris in the seventeenth century. Like his print collection, his map collection was extremely diverse. Because he controlled a veritable stable of engravers, he discontinued the Tavernier practice of importing Dutch maps but rather copied them and published them along with the maps of Boisseau, Le Clerc, and Tassin. His investment in Sanson, however, assured the public of access to a working geographer's stock, not just a copyist's. Part of Mariette's financial success, at least on the atlas side, sprang from his insistence on selling atlases only as a whole, not as separate maps. The public, and in particular 'persons of quality and the army,' complained, and complained loudly. Their voices reached the King. The result was an ordinance of 7 April 1688 which stopped the practice of selling only complete atlases. This was to have a profound effect on the map and atlas trade. His Majesty, having received divers complaints that under the pretext of privilege accorded to some geographers or map sellers living in his fair city of Paris, are selling, to the exclusion of all others, maps which they have composed and the plates for which they alone control, and are making it difficult to buy these maps separately, obliging individuals who only need some of them, to buy the whole book made up of their maps. This prejudices the public and in particular the King's officers, who, not having the means to buy these complete books, cannot buy the individual maps they need. His Majesty has ordained and does henceforth ordain that the said geographers and mapsellers will be held to supply maps to all who want them, on the condition, however, that the buyer pay double the price for a map when it is sold separately."
Problems in Atlas Editing in Enlightenment France / 89 The last proviso must have appeased the map sellers, who cannot have been happy about an ordinance which could so reduce their profits, and which made the expense and effort of producing an atlas all the more formidable. These expenses become more apparent by studying contracts struck between Nicolas Sanson's sons, Adrien and Guillaume, and the engraver/print seller Alexis Hubert Jaillot (01632-1712). Jaillot, trained as a sculptor, married the daughter of Nicolas Berey, the printer who had acquired half of the Tassin stock. This connection allowed Jaillot to become a registered engraver and print seller. He expanded the print-selling business by working with Sanson's sons to produce the Atlas nouveau, a multi-volume elephant-folio atlas, already mentioned in its pirated Dutch edition, and later, the Atlas frangois. The Sanson brothers could do little without the help of Jaillot; contemporary sources describe the poverty in which they lived, even though their lodgings were in the state owned Galeries du Louvre.12 They provided maps to Jaillot on fairly stringent terms: Jaillot wanted finished map designs produced every three weeks, written legibly and highlighted to assist the engraver. The Sansons were paid 176 livres for a two-sheet map, and 88 livres for a one-sheet map. In return, the Sansons promised to do corrections and guaranteed to Jaillot exclusive rights to sell these maps. Such contracts give us a clearer view of the costs of atlas production. Each map cost about 130 livres, to produce: the design cost about ninety livres, the copperplate, about ten livres, and the engraving, around thirty livres. Maps were sold at between six and eight sows.13 Thus to recoup the expense of producing a single new map, one would have to sell 325 copies. But an atlas made up of about 150 maps was sold for about twenty livres, that is, at about three sous per map, half the price for separate sheets, as per the Ordinance of 1688. A publisher would therefore have to sell five or six atlases to pay for one new map. The economics of using, re-using, up-dating old plates instead of making new maps now becomes very clear (Figure 3.1). Jaillot and Mariette were not the only map publishers at the end of the seventeenth century. Nicolas Sanson's nephew, Pierre Duval (16191683), a Geographer to the King also came from Abbeville to find his fortune as a geographer in Paris. His work was first published by Pierre Mariette, then by Antoine de Per and Nicolas Berey, the engravers who bought the Tassin stock. Duval's marriage to the daughter of a merchant in 1654 marked the moment when Duval began to do
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Figure 3.1 A map store in Paris, from Jaillot, Atlas nouveau (Paris, 1692). By permission of the William L. Clements Library, University of Michigan.
his own atlas publishing; his wife's dowry of 2000 livres and the opportunity to live in her father's house eased the overhead for Duval. While his atlases are essentially geographical, they also include geographical tables, genealogical tables, heraldic diagrams, board and card games. Such variety insured their popularity, and the smaller quarto and octavo versions of his atlases were the choice of students in Paris.14 Thus Duval, like Tassin and Sanson, is one of the few geographers who published his own work, at least for part of his career. But his connections with Mariette, Berey, and de Per no doubt showed him that maps alone would not produce the necessary revenue for atlas production, and capturing the school market and the more general market for games and tables was important for his success. A similar principle animated the atlases of Antoine de Fer's son, Nicolas de Per, an engraver who from youth was interested in cartography. He had shown a talent for maps at an early age, and his mapping interests focused on incorporating the work of the members
Problems in Atlas Editing in Enlightenment France / 91 of the Academic des Sciences, which by the end of the seventeenth century had great implications for cartography, especially in the research on the measurement of longitude. De Fer was supported in this by the astronomer Philippe de la Hire, and his maps are noted for their claim in the cartouche, leased on the latest astronomical observations/ As an engraver and print seller, however, De Fer kept and published a diverse stock, seen at its fullest in the Atlas curieux, a collection of maps, city plans, monuments and curiosities. De Fer himself signed all the plates but gave no sources for his information. He was an encyclopedic compiler, but his atlases do not exhibit that coherence of thought and exposition that is found in those of Tassin or Sanson.15 Without disussing all atlas producers, it is clear that by the end of the seventeenth century the economics of the trade made it nearly impossible for a geographer, whose only income was from maps, to produce an atlas. The costs of designs, copperplate, engraving and printing meant that potential publishers or 'editors' had to have access to capital which could only come from more diverse trades: books and prints. Yet the bookseller/printers seemed to drop out of the picture early on. The legal restrictions imposed by the guilds were such that in Paris, booksellers could not sell prints, nor could engravers sell books. Melchior Tavernier was sued by the Guild of Book Printers for selling books when he was a member of the Guild of Copperplate Printers.16 Printers with letter-presses could not own the roller presses used for copperplate, and vice versa. No copperplate printer could possess type for more more than six lines of captions, thus accounting for the engraved plates of text in de Fer and Duval atlases rather than pages printed from letterpress. The printers guild was restricted in number to thirty-six booksellers/ printers and further restricted to certain geographical areas in Paris: the University quarter and the quai de 1'Horloge (the latter because of its proximity to the law courts of the Palais de Justice). Copperplate printers were equally confined geographically, but engravers could locate anywhere. Nevertheless, they tended to cluster near the printers in the University quarter, no doubt to have easy access to presses, paper, ink, and the ambient market.17 Both guilds were supervised and inspected with some frequency by their own officers and by the official supervisor of book publishing. An example of such inspection and its effect on map printing was seen in 1724 when Jean de Beaurain, a Geographer to the King was found acting as a bookseller/printer by keeping a shop which sold books as
92 / Mary Sponberg Pedley well as maps. The guild complained and asked that his shop be closed and that Beaurain not style himself libraire-imprimeur/ for he was not a member of the guild.18 The essential element in the production of an atlas was the copperplate press, to which booksellers/printers did not have access. To create atlases with a combination of text and graphics, in the Dutch way, would be to combine and cross the lines of two distinct guilds, something heavily discouraged. This explains the dominance of engravers in atlas production in the seventeenth century and also the variety of maps in their atlases, as well as the small amount of text. Atlases were collections of maps, sometimes uniform, sometimes produced by the publisher, sometimes collected by the buyer and bound by a bookbinder. And as we have seen, the buyer was guaranteed the right to buy maps separately and thereby create any sort of atlas he or she wanted. The Eighteenth Century Cartography in the eighteenth century was dominated by the development of accurate astronomical observations. The arrival in Paris of the Italian astronomer, Giovanni Domenico Cassini, and the foundation of the Academie Royale des Sciences changed forever the focus of French cartography. The connection between the work of the Academie and cartographers is best represented in Guillaume Delisle (1675-1726), a geographer who came neither out of the corps of military engineers nor the print trade. Trained both by his father, Claude Delisle (1643-1720), historian-cum-geographer, and by the astronomer Cassini, Guillaume has been credited with revolutionizing cartography in France by his more catholic approach to map making. This involved using all available sources - textual, astronomical, and geographical for his maps, which he constantly corrected and revised. (This had been the approach of Nicolas Sanson earlier, but Delisle carried it to a new level of precision.) However, Delisle's formal position as an astronomer in the Academie des Sciences placed him in a different category than his cartographic predecessors. As an astronomer, he was first and foremost a 'scientist/ in the broad eighteenth-century sense of that term, and while he made, printed, and sold maps himself, not through the intermediary of a print seller or engraver, his focus was on the science of cartography rather than its commerce. His expertise in geography was royally rewarded: he was appointed Premier Geographer to the King (premier geographe du roi), a title in which he was
Problems in Atlas Editing in Enlightenment France / 93 succeeded by his young assistant, Philippe Buache, and then by Jean Baptiste Bourguignon d'Anville. Delisle, Buache, and d'Anville, all geographers of immense capabilities, grappled willingly with the tedious process of map compilation. Yet not one was an atlas maker, much less editor; that is, none of them set out to create an atlas with a specific agenda or objective in mind. Atlases were certainly assembled from collections of their maps, probably by the geographers themselves or by knowledgeable buyers holding the abbe Lenglet Dufresnoy's Catalogue des meilleures cartes geographiques (1742) in their hands. But their atlases were not uniform creations. Yet what was particularly important about their commerce was that these geographers sold their own maps independently, not in conjunction with an engraver or a print seller. They were not without subsidy, however, in a new form: the government pension and/or the support of a rich benefactor. Each of the three, seriatim, received the title of Premier Geographer created initially for Guillaume Delisle. It provided an annual pension of 1200 livres per year, which was modest but a living wage. (It was, after all, worth 4000 pounds of butter). They all gave mathematics and geography lessons privately; they all were members of the Academic des Sciences which also provided some financial support for their endeavors. And they all sold their own maps, both in France and abroad. Even though he had married Delisle's daughter, Philippe Buache (1700-1773) did not succeed to Delisle's stock of maps until the death of Delisle's widow in 1745. Initially trained as an architect, Buache had won the coveted Prix de Rome in 1721, but turned down the offer of a three year fellowship at the Ecole Frangaise in Rome to act as assistant to Delisle. Until he gained control of the Delisle fonds, he worked as an assistant to the astronomer Joseph-Nicolas Delisle and also in the newly re-organized Depot de la Marine. His skills as a hydrographer and cartographer earned him the place of Assistant Geographer in the Academic des Sciences, the first to hold this new title. He produced some of the first thematic maps of the hydrography of France and maps on other themes such as minerology and orology. Buache's contemporary d'Anville (1797-1782) concentrated his efforts in the first half of his career on the mapping of the ancient world. He also compiled Jesuit sources for a series of maps of China, assembled into the Atlas de la Chine which accompanied pere Du Halde's Histoire de la Chine. In this work, d'Anville was very much the hired hand, for the editorial conception was Du Halde's.19 In general, his cartographic energies were supported by the patronage of the due d'Orleans, his
94 / Mary Sponberg Pedley effusively acknowledged Mycenas. Whether mapping the ancient or modern world, d'Anville used the Delisle method of compilation - a rigorous analysis of all sources, dubbed by d'Anville the 'positive geography/20 With these men, France's cartographical interests shifted from the commercial to the intellectual. Their work dominated cartographic production in the eighteenth century, but the atlas as a map making venture held little appeal for any of them, nor for that matter for anyone else. Evidence of this lack of interest in atlas production in France in the first half of the eighteenth century is seen in Lenglet Dufresnoy's Catalogue des meilleures cartes geographiques. This catalogue lists books and maps available for the enlightened autodidact. The map catalogue presents a wide range of geographers, both chronologically and geographically, from Sanson to the most recent Homann maps from Nuremberg. In terms of French atlases, Lenglet Dufresnoy recommended the following: the Grand Atlas of Sanson, published by Covens and Mortier of Amsterdam; The Sanson/Jaillot atlas; the Atlas Major of Frederic De Wit, another Dutch production; Sanson's Ancient Geography; the maps of Delisle assembled into an atlas, by the buyer; maps of Charles Allard (late seventeenth century, Dutch) assembled into a Blaeu atlas, then a century old. Thus, in 1742, the most recent atlas suggested was by Delisle, then dead for nearly twenty years, and the only French productions were the Delisle collection and the Sanson/ Jaillot atlas which was considerably out of date. Yet at the mid point of the eighteenth century, the book trade was flourishing and indeed was so active (and so lucrative) that a government minister was charged with its supervision. The print trade, too, was thriving. There was money available for publishing and a rising middle class was consuming the decorative arts, books, and prints as quickly as they were produced. It was a literate class, with interests in the sciences as well as the arts; it saw the building of a personal library as a status symbol. But an atlas in this library was probably a Blaeu or some other Dutch production. Where were the French atlas makers for this burgeoning market? As noted, the restrictions on production, and the guild regulations for both booksellers/printers and copperplate printers controlled most of the publishing. Maps were sold by engravers and also by geographers from their own premises and atlases could be easily assembled from individual sheets purchased at one or any number of different premises, all within easy distance of each other. It required little effort
Problems in Atlas Editing in Enlightenment France / 95 and no great expense to put together an atlas from existing maps. Thus, the dearth of new atlases in the first half of the century suggests that this system was well-regulated and satisfied the market for maps and atlases. It also guaranteed for geographers, like Delisle, Buache, and d'Anville, as well as for the heirs of Sanson, Jaillot, Duval and de Per, a certain steady trade, since they were all selling individual maps, not competing atlases. The expense of producing even one new map was enough to discourage any other type of atlas production. The Atlas universal This then was the scene in 1752 when a folio brochure, four pages long, published in Paris announced a new world atlas. It was called the Atlas universel, (Figure 3.2) 'complete in one hundred geographical maps, prepared using the most exact and most recent relations and observation/ A collection of maps each in the same large format and all in a single volume, it was advertised as not very expensive but complete and sufficient for the needs of the greatest number of people. The maps were by Monsieur Robert and Monsieur de Vaugondy, his son, both Geographers to the King, but the whole atlas was proposed by subscription by Antoine Boudet, bookseller/printer to the King on the rue St. Jacques. This announcement must have been deeply jarring for the small, comfortable community of Paris map makers. That only two geographers could create one hundred new maps, all in the same format, required a huge investment, both intellectually and financially. That a bookseller/printer was apparently putting up the money would be the first occurrence of such involvement since Jean Le Clerc in the early seventeenth century. And the idea of a subscription for selling maps was completely new on this side of the Channel. The French had not emulated the English practice of festooning maps with subscribers' coats of arms; French maps tended to display elaborate cartouches with florid dedications to potential patrons and government ministers.21 This startling prospectus made a strong case for a new atlas, describing the need for current geographical knowledge. The atlas of Blaeu was said to be voluminous, rare, expensive, and out-of-date. The difficulty with modern geographers was the problem of distinguishing the good map from the mediocre. The Roberts promised to make use of all the most recent sources, cartographical, astronomical, and otherwise. No expense would be spared in the engraving of these maps and their cartouches. Potential subscribers were reminded that
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Figure 3.2 Title page from the Robert de Vaugondy Atlas universe! (Paris, 1757). By permission of the William L. Clements Library, University of Michigan.
Problems in Atlas Editing in Enlightenment France / 97 the maps of the atlas would be distributed to buyers according to their place on the subscription list: first come, first proofs.22 All this was enough to render one reader, Philippe Buache, furious. As Premier Geographer to the King he felt it his duty to warn his fellow geographers about this unwanted competition, which he did in a letter to M. de Malesherbes, the minister in charge of the book and print trade.23 Buache marshalled his argument first against Antoine Boudet, a bookseller/printer from Lyon, who had made a fortune by publishing xthe Petites affiches and Journal oeconomique when he came to Paris. Buache knew Boudet well enough for he had brought a suit against him in 1746-47. Buache had discovered that two engravers were copying his maps for an atlas about to be published by Antoine Boudet. Buache stopped the atlas and won the suit on two grounds: the engravers were copying his work, an obvious infringement of his privilege, and the law prevented book dealers from selling geographical maps printed on copperplate. The plagiarized plates were seized and confiscated.24 Yet five years later Antoine Boudet was back in the atlas business once more, and Buache felt his reasons for bringing out a new atlas were dubious indeed. In his letter, Buache conceded that the Blaeu atlas was rather large - twelve volumes in-folio - and rather costly - 800 livres (more than half of Buache's yearly pension) and admittedly out of date. But he questioned whether that meant that a completely new atlas was necessary. He reminded the minister that one could go to the Jaillots' family shop on the quai des Grands Augustins, or to d'Anville, just across the river in the Galeries du Louvre, or to Buache himself on the quai de 1'Horloge for Delisle maps, or even to the Roberts, who were Buache's neighbors on the same street, to acquire any maps needed. And if the stocks of any of these shops lacked some geographical area or did not reflect up to date astronomical observation, Buache invited the Minister to encourage (and perhaps even support) geographers to produce maps of such areas. If Buache was harsh in his opinion of Boudet, his sharpest words were aimed at the Roberts, his neighbours and fellow geographers. They, he said, were more guilty than Boudet of transgression. They were betraying the geographers' profession by depriving their colleagues of business. By producing an atlas, they took away from other geographers the chance to sell maps of the same areas. Furthermore, Buache added, these Robert maps were not very good anyway: a review of the first maps issued for the Atlas universel showed a badly
98 / Mary Sponberg Pedley drawn coastline of the Holy Land, a skewed meridian of Paris on the France map, no scale on the map of Russia where the projection supported one, and a scale on the map of South America when there should not be one. And in a parting shot, he claimed that all the maps were badly coloured.25 Though Philippe Buache was obviously annoyed, over 1100 subscribers were not deterred by his complaints. This was the number of people who paid 96 and 120 livres respectively for the 108 maps in the narrow margin (petit papier) and wide margin (grand papier) editions of the Atlas universel (Figure 3.3). Its success was such that according to Antoine Boudet, England alone accounted for 500 copies.26 It continued to be sold by the Roberts' successor, Charles Delamarche, well into the nineteenth century. What was it about this atlas which made it so popular and its maps so ubiquitous? And what was it about its publication that seemed to open up Paris to atlas production in the latter half of the eighteenth century? First we should look at the authors. Gilles Robert, the father, was one of three heirs to the stock of maps of the Sanson family. He continued to print and sell Sanson maps, both in unaltered original states and in corrected and revised states. He published his own works, too, and in the late 17405 had made a foray into atlas production with two booksellers, producing the Atlas portatif militaire et universel. Gilles' son, Didier Robert de Vaugondy, had been trained in geography by his father, became Geographer to the King in 1752 on the strength of globes he prepared for Louis xv, and had worked with his father on the earlier atlas. It was Didier who composed the introduction or historical preface to the Atlas universel which explained the motives and editing considerations for the maps in the atlas. This preface was something new to French atlases, and perhaps unique in the French context. The entire preface was a combination of Didier's Essai historique de la geographic, a history of cartography from the ancient Greeks to the present moment first published in 1750, and a description of the sources for all the maps in the atlas. These short carto-bibliographies summarized the cartography of each region and described which sources the Roberts used for the present atlas. The preface vaguely resembles Guillaume Sanson's 'Introduction de la Geographic/ found in the front matter of many Sanson atlases and the source descriptions found on the back of Ortelius or Blaeu maps. But Robert de Vaugondy added something entirely new, a section entitled T'Entreprise de le nouvel atlas,' which carefully outlined the ideal design and function of a world atlas.
Problems in Atlas Editing in Enlightenment France / 99
Figure 3.3 A portion of the list of subscribers to the Robert de Vaugondy Atlas universel (Paris, 1757). By permission of the William L. Clements Library, University of Michigan.
ioo / Mary Sponberg Pedley An atlas, said Vaugondy, should be 'commode, complet, uniforme, et suivi' (easy to handle, complete, uniform, and consistent). First and foremost, an atlas should be a convenient size. The very large sizes of some contemporary maps seemed bizarre to Vaugondy, and he specifically mentioned the outsize maps by d'Anville. According to Vaugondy, maps should be no higher than sixteen or eighteen inches, a size which could easily fit on shelves in any library already designed for folio-sized volumes. A comprehensive or complete atlas has a sufficient number of maps of both small and large scale to allow all aspects of ancient and modern history to be studied. No sovereignty, however small, should be omitted, and maps of ancient history should be included as well as those of modern kingdoms. Atlases should be uniform and consistent not only in style, but in scale, an innovation introduced by Nicolas Sanson. Every effort should be made to keep the same scale for neighbouring areas. Atlases should be simple and easy to comprehend, using a minimum number of symbols and the same ones throughout. By using the same symbols on all their maps, the Vaugondys avoided explanatory tables which could make map reading so irksome. The Vaugondys also wanted their maps to be 'distinct and well engraved/ Their stringent demands for consistent size, slant, and spacing of lettering on their maps led to a lawsuit between their publisher, Boudet, and their engravers, the family Delahaye.27 Does the Atlas universe] live up to its own description? It certainly is uniform in style and convenient in size, especially compared to the multi-volume Blaeu or the elephant-folio Jaillot/Sanson. The scales and format are as consistent as the middle of the eighteenth century allows, and it is only in its 'completeness' that complaint might be made. There are eleven maps of the ancient world, one of medieval Europe (the empire of Charlemagne), the five continents, and then detailed coverage of Europe, but no detail of Africa and South America. In North America, French holdings in Canada are displayed in two or three maps, but there is no detail of the Mississippi and New Orleans in the territory of Louisiana. The addition in the final phases of production of the post route maps of England, France, Germany, Italy, and the Iberian peninsula, reveals the general European audience the Roberts had in mind. In fact, Vaugondy described his atlas readers in the introduction to the subscription list: 'those who read History as well as those who pay attention only to modern events. Our maps show their worth by allow-
Problems in Atlas Editing in Enlightenment France / 101 ing the reader to be transported to the scene of an event, and once there, being able to judge for him/herself the event and pondering on the future.'28 This was an important moment, then, in terms of the history of atlas production in France. No geographer since Sanson - and it is significant that the Vaugondys were heirs to the Sanson fonds - had conceived of an atlas on this scale and plan, of a suitable size, with complete world coverage, and of use to a wide range of people. This was not an atlas for the military, nor for a government ministry; it was not an atlas of one particular area of the world nor covering one particular time period. It did not have the encyclopedic content of a de Fer Atlas curieux nor was it one of the 'Theatres of Wars' or 'Collections of Ports and Cities' which were staples of the atlas trade. It really was a world atlas, adhering to Akerman's model: graphic exposition, standardization and uniformity, unity of effort and thought, a model which was also Vaugondy's. And despite Philippe Buache's complaints, the publication of the Atlas universel seemed to open the door for a great deal of atlas publication from the 17605 through to the Revolution. After the publication of the Atlas universel in 1758, some very different trends emerged in atlas and map publication. The most prominent is what might be called the merger, and it ultimately led to the big map publishing houses established in the nineteenth century. Its features included a single entrepreneur, either a geographer or engraver, who acquired through sale, marriage, and/or inheritance map, globe, and scientific instrument businesses in a consolidation of stock. Such consolidation provided a diversified enough business to support the expensive publication of atlases. The entrepreneur hired other geographers to work for him as well as a stable of engravers, and also operated a map store. The best examples of this trend are Louis Charles Desnos and Roch Joseph Julien, both Geographers to the King, both map makers themselves, but with grander ideas and access to capital which allowed them their diversified interests. On a smaller scale, Jean Lattre, an engraver, also produced a number of atlases in the same way, hiring geographers (Rigobert Bonne, Rizzi-Zannoni, Jean Janvier) and consistently using the same engravers (usually himself and his wife). How did this differ from Jaillot using the Sansons or Christophe Tassin to produce his own atlases? In part, it was the sheer scale of operations and the range of new maps being made. Geographers like Julien and Desnos seemed to have realized that selling maps alone would not generate the profits necessary to support atlas making
102 / Mary Sponberg Pedley ventures, yet they also understood from the popularity of the Atlas universel that a market existed for atlases which conformed to the Vaugondy model. So they set out to capture this market, despite the capital outlay. Their capital came from various sources. Julien supported his atlaspublishing from his map store in the Hotel de Soubise, in the Marais (now part of the Archives Nationales), quite a distance from the left bank Latin Quarter. As well as being a military engineer, Julien was Supervisor for buildings to the Prince de Soubise, a post which perhaps supplemented his income from maps and also provided him with space for his shop. In Paris, he was the main importer of maps from the Homann family in Nuremburg and of maps from England, especially those by Jean Rocque and Andrew Dury, Frenchmen who had found their fortunes in London. Desnos, on the other hand, was a master metal caster who married the widow of the globe-maker Nicolas Hardy, thus acquiring a considerable stock in this trade. To this he added at least part of the collection of Nicolas de Per (bought from de Fer's son-in-law, Desbois) and that of the Jaillot family. In addition, he styled himself a military engineer and in 1769 became Bookseller and Geographer to the King of Denmark, a title which apparently allowed him to function as a bookseller in the heart of the book trade, on the rue St Jacques at the sign of the Globe.29 His rich description of his stock demonstrates just how much the map trade had altered and atlas production with it: Notice The shop of M. Desnos is one of the most complete and best outfitted in all that concerns geography. At his place, the curious will see with satisfaction a mobile sphere of Copernicus, six feet in circumference; also in all sizes, ... new celestial and terrestrial globes; spheres for the different systems of the world, with compasses for orienting them; celestial planispheres, cosmoplanes, a geographical index ...; new atlases, historical, universal, and specialized, adapted to all the books which deal with the geography and history of France, ancient as well as modern, watercolored in the Dutch style; maps and plans of cities; the Theatre of War in Germany, with eighty maps and plans of battles; general itineraries for all the routes of France, Germany, Spain, England, and Italy; large maps for studies, large plans and the curiosities of Paris and others, with ornamentation, glued onto linen, mounted on rollers, and coloured; collections of prints ...; landscapes of Perelles; the history of birds by Robert and Jonston; the Natural
Problems in Atlas Editing in Enlightenment France / 103 History of the insects of Surinam and Europe by Mile de Merian; a very considerable assortment of Almanachs ...; geographical screens for instructing the young, and other pretty engravings, books of astronomy and geography and mathematics, and the bibliographie Parisienne ... He also sells the most complete mathematical kits, and generally everything which concerns the sciences. He distributes free the Catalogue and Prospectus of all his works ... as much in Geography as in books and Almanachs, among which are found the Combinations of the Lottery for the Ecole Royale Militaire, to serve as an instruction about this Lottery and an enlightenment on the various advantages one can draw from it ...3°
From globes to lottery tickets: such was the diversification of this geographer turned publisher, with an eye on every possible market. While the great eighteenth-century geographers Delisle, Buache, and d'Anville did not succumb to this commercial fever, their collections were posthumously added to others. D'Anville's sold his personal map collection to the state, but his stock of maps continued to be sold by his assistant, Nicolas DeManne; Buache's nephew and successor, Buache de la Neuville, sold the Delisle-Buache/onds to J. Dezauche, an engraver also interested in expanding his stock, who added to it that portion of the Jaillot/onds not bought by Desnos. Many atlases were published in the last half of the eighteenth century, and they were atlases which followed the Vaugondy formula: they were of a convenient size, of a uniform format, consistent scales, and were relatively complete. The Atlas moderne published in 1762 by Jean Lattre, the engraver, with maps by Rigobert Bonne and Janvier, was one such example. The introduction for this atlas reflected very much the Vaugondy thinking about atlas size, weight, shape, ease of reading, uniformity of style, scale and format. The pattern for atlases had now been set. To create them, the only thing required was money, and this is what had changed. Nothing had altered in the laws concerning the book trade or the print trade. It was simply that some geographers seized the opportunities available to consolidate trade and diversify their stock. Desnos, in using his bookseller title to full advantage, carried a wider range of stock than his instrument maker status would allow. Lattre, an engraver already, could sell prints as well as maps (though we note that his Atlas moderne listed a bookseller on its title page, so perhaps
104 / Mary Sponberg Pedley Antoine Boudet helped break down that barrier to map publication). Charles Delamarche, who bought the Robert de Vaugondy stock, though a lawyer by training, moved smoothly into the school supply market. His success was continued by his son, Felix, who was in partnership with Charles Dien, the purchaser of the Lattre stock, once again combining several large collections. Thus, by the end of the eighteenth century, most of the stocks of the major names in geography were in the hands of very few people: Desnos, Dezauche, Delamarche. By inheritance or purchase, they held not only the plates and maps of eighteenth century geographers, but the remains of the work of the seventeenth century, too. Such consolidations and mergers made the publication of atlases all the more possible by releasing capital and by streamlining production. The regular employment of geographers by a single publisher was a harbinger of the geographic 'bureaux' of the Jomard and early Michelin publishing houses in the nineteenth century. The widening of the educational market with the Revolutionary establishment of state schools also helped map and atlas production. But it was the clear definition by Didier Robert de Vaugondy of what an atlas should look like, should feel like, and should be like which set an expectation for atlases from which we have not come very far. NOTES 1 Le Grand Robert de la Langue frangaise, Second Edition (Paris: 1985), 3: 793-4. We also note that the verb 'to edit' does not appear in English until 1791. Oxford English Dictionary, Second Edition (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989), 5: 71. 2 Mireille Pastoureau, Les Atlas fran$ais, XVie-XVlle siecles (Paris: Bibliotheque nationale, 1984), iii. See also M. Pastoureau, 'Les Atlas imprimes en France avant 1700,' Imago Mundi 32 (1980), 45-72. 3 ... 'a ete forme avec le plus grand soin par M. de Malesherbes.' Catalogue de la bibliotheque de Malesherbes, (Paris: Jean-Luc Nyon, 1'aine, rue du Jardinet 1797), lot nos. 4015-23. 4 Archives nationales (France): Marine 2jj 60, fol. 28. Louis Renard to Guillaume Delisle, 22 novembre 1707: '... [Mortier] est riche et sans honneur; il dit ... qu'il vendoit les cartes au gre des achepteurs et qu'il en avoit toujours en provision avec le nom de tous les auteurs les plus fameuses, accommodant ainsi avec les memes cartes ceux qui voulaient - Delisle, Sanson, De Per, Jaillot, Bailleul ... il negotie ses
Problems in Atlas Editing in Enlightenment France / 105
5 6
7 8
9 10 11
cartes sous votre nom en Allemagne; sous celui de Sanson en Angleterre; sous celui de De Per en Pologne et en Italie.et partout ainsi ...' Pastoureau, Atlasfrangais,81. Ibid., 295, 300: on the verso of the Table de toutes les cartes des provinces/ LeClerc explains the long delay caused 'par la consultation de mathematiciens et de geographies, par la difficulte du recrutement des graveurs et par les frais important occasionnes par 1'entreprise.' Ibid., 67, 97-8. Ibid., 469: 'que nous pouvons faire en France ce que les estrangers jusques a present nous ont fourny et que nous n'avions que par eux ...'; on the map of Espagne: '... sachant que jusques a present en France personne n'a pris le soing et n'a voulu faire la despence necessaire pour la graveure des Cartes, ny employer le long temps que cest ouvrage demande, le fruit qui en revient estant sy petit et si peu considerable, je n'ay pas laisse neantmoins de m'efforcer de temps en temps a donner au public quelques pieces de geographic.' Ibid., 437. Nicolas Sanson d'Abbeville, Atlas du Monde 1665, Mireille Pastoureau ed. (Paris: Sand & Conti, 1988), 19. Pastoureau, Atlas franqais, 388, quoting Bibliotheque Nationale (France): Imprimes, Inv.F.2i258(5i); Ms.fr. 21733 f°- 57-8: Sa Majeste, ayant receu diverses plaintes, de ce que sous pretexte du privilege qui a este accorde a aucuns geographies ou marchands de cartes geographiques habituez en sa bonne ville de Paris, de vendre, debiter seuls a 1'exclusion de tous autres les cartes gegraphiques qu'ils ont composees, et dont ils ont seuls en leur disposition les planches, font difficulte de vendre en detail lesdites cartes, voulants pbliger les particuliers qui n'en ont besoin que de quelques unes, a acheter les livres entiers qu'ils ont formez de toutes leurs cartes, ce qui porte prejudice au public & particulieremont aux officiers de ses troupes, dont aucuns n'aynat pas le moyen d'acheter lesdits livres entiers ne peuvent avoir les cartes particulieres dont ils ont besoin [...]. Sa Majeste a ordonne & ordonne que doresnavant lesdits geographies ou marchands de cartes seront tenus de fournir des cartes geographiques a tous ceux qui leur en demanderont, a condition toutefois de leur en payer le double du prix qu'il les vendent lorsqu'ils fournissent le livre entier [...]
12 Pastoureau, in Sanson Atlas du Monde 1665, 42. Pastoureau quotes from Valentin Jameray-Duval who went to pay his respects to Adrien
io6 / Mary Sponberg Pedley
13
14
15 16 17
18 19
20 21
22
Sanson in the early eighteenth century: 'Mais quelle fut ma surprise de les trouver etablis dans un des plus obscurs et des plus ignobles taudis de la ville/ This suggests that lodgings in the Galeries du Louvre were not as luxurious as the address implied. Pastoureau, Atlas frangais, 231; Pastoureau, in Sanson Atlas du Monde 1665, 35-9. There were twenty sows in a livre. For a relative scale, at the end of the seventeenth century, six to eight sows could buy a pound of butter.) Pastoureau, Atlas frangais, 136, quotes Didier Robert de Vaugondy writing in 1750: '[Duval] avait si bien gagne [cette marche] que nul ecolier n'etoit bien regu de son professeur s'il netoit muni de son Duval.' Ibid., 167-9. Paul Chauvet, Les Ouvriers du livre en France des origines a la Revolution de 1789, (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1959), 326-7. 'Reglement du conseil pour la librairie et imprimerie de Paris, 28 fevrier 1723' (especially articles 43 and 279). In Isambert, Decrusy, Taillandrier, Receuil general des andennes lois francais, Paris: Belin-LePrieur, Verdiere, [18221-33), xxi: 216 ff. For statute of May 1694 for the imprimeurs en taille-douce, see Rene de Lespinasse, Les metiers et corporations de la Ville de Paris, (Paris: Imprimerie nationale, 1886-1893), in: 700. Bibliotheque nationale (France): Collection Anisson, ms.fr. 22065 (116), 'Extrait des Registres du Conseil d'Etat prive du Roy/ 29 mai 1724. See their contracts from 1728-34, published by Henri Cordier, 'Du Halde et d'Anville (Cartes de la Chine),' Receuil de memoires orientaux par les professeurs de I'Ecole des Langues Orientales, (Paris, 1905), 389-400. Jean-Baptiste Bourguignon d'Anville, Analyse geographique de I'ltalie, (Paris: Vve Estienne et fils, 1744), viii, xxxv. The Encyclopedic of course was sold by subscription before its suppression in 1757, and the Cassini family adopted the use of subscription for the support of the Carte de France when royal subsidies stopped after 1756. We note that both these subscription enterprises date from mid-century, just at the moment the Atlas universel opened its subscription list. I have not pursued which of these was the really the first to use this financing method nor whether it was in imitation of English subscription lists, where it was a common financing method in the eighteenth century. Bibliotheque Nationale (France): Imprimes 0.1538, in-folio, 'Atlas universel complet en cent cartes geographiques, dressees sur les
Problems in Atlas Editing in Enlightenment France / 107
23
24
25
26
27 28
29
30
relations et les Observations les plus exactes & les plus recentes, Par M. Robert & M. de Vaugondy, son fils, Geographies du Roi. Grand infolio, Propose par souscription, A Paris, chez Antoine Boudet, Bookseller/printer to the King, rue St Jacques 1752.' Bibliotheque nationale (France): Cartes et Plans, Papiers Buache, Ge. 13375, Discussion de geographic legale entre Buache et le libraire Boudet; 31 Janvier 1752, Buache to le comte de St. Florentin and le Comte d'Argenson, copying his memoire to M. de Malesherbes, Directeur de la Librairie, and 1'abbe Belley, Censeur Royal. Archives nationales (France): Minutier Central (Notarial archives), LVII, 383, 18 aoust 1747, Transaction entre Philippe Buache, Guillaume d'Heulland, graveur, et Jerome Vallet, graveur. These criticisms and the Vaugondys' replies are explored further in Mary Pedley, Bel et Utile: The Work of the Robert de Vaugondy Family of Mapmakers, (Tring, Herts.: Map Collector Publications, 1992), Chapter Three, 'The Atlas universel,' 51-68. H.J. Martin et al, Histoire de I'Edition franqaise: le livre triomphant 1660-1830 (Paris: Promodis, 1984), n: 276, quoting Boudet to M. de Bombarde, 10 fevrier 1763. Mary Pedley, 'New Light on an Old Atlas: Documents concerning the publication of the Atlas universel/ Imago Mundi 36 (1984), 18-64. Atlas universel, 1757, [Introduction to the Names of the Subscribers to the Atlas]: 'personnes studieuses, de celles qui lisent 1'Histoire, comme de celles qui ne sont attentives qu'aux evenemens modernes ... nos Cartes particulieres ont fourni un developpement tel qu'on a toujours pu se transporter sur le scene, & se trouver a portee de juger, pour ainsi dire, des coups, de raisonner meme sur 1'avenir.' Documents or citations of documents attesting to these activities may be found in the Archives nationales (France): Minutier central (Notarial archives), xxv, 824, 10 fevrier 1785: Liquidation et partage de la communaute d'entre le S. Desnos et la dlle Loye sa femme; v, 916, 29 messidor an 13: Inventaire apres deces de Louis Charles Desnos (decede 27 germinal). In the Archives de Paris: Fonds de la juridiction consulaire: registres des faillites, D4B6 (91) doss. 6227, i juillet 1784: Bilan depose, faillite de L.C. Desnos. For the Hardy connection, see Mireille Pastoureau, 'Les Hardy, pere et fils, et Louis-Charles Desnos "faiseurs de globes" a Paris au milieu du xvme siecle/ C. Blondel, ed. et al, Studies in the History of Scientific Instruments, (London: Rogers Turner Books, 1989), 73-82. Notice at end of I'Indicateur Fidele, 1775 (copy in Bodleian Library, Oxford: Vet. E 5 d.28).
io8 / Mary Sponberg Pedley Avis Le Magasin du Sieur DESNOS est un des plus complets & des mieux fournis, en tout ce qui concerne la Geographic. Les Curieux verront chex lui, avec satisfaction, une Sphere de Copernic mouvante, de six pieds de circonference. On y trouvera, de toutes grandeurs, plus ou moins decores, artistement montes de nouveaux Globes Celestes & Terrestres, des Spheres pour les differens Sytemes du monde, avec des Boussoles pour les orienter; comme aussi des Planispheres Celestes, Cosmoplanes, Index Geographique, nouvel instrument trescurieux & propre a orner les Cabinets & les Bibliotheques; de nouveaux Atlas historiques, universels & particuliers, adaptes a tous les Livres qui traitent de la Geographic & de 1'Histoire de France, tant anciennes que modernes, laves & enlumines a la maniere Hollandoise; Cartes & Plans de Ville; le Theatre de la guerre en Allemagne, avec quatre-vingt cartes & plans de Batailles; des Itineraries generaux pour toutes les routes de France, d'Allemagne, d'Espagne, d'Angleterre & d'ltalie; grandes Cartes de Cabinets, grands Plans & curiosites de Paris, & autres, avec ornemens, colles sur toile, montes sur gorge & enlumines; recueil d'Estampes, telles que les Metamorphoses d'Ovide; 1'Iconologie historique & genealogique des Rois de France, avec leurs portraits; Paysages de Perelles: Histoire des Oiseaux, par Robert & Jonston; Histoire naturelle, enluminee, des Insectes de Surinam & de 1'Europe, par Mile de Merian; un assortment des plus considerables d'Almanachs, bijoux d'etrennes tant historiques que geographiques, avec Tablettes, pertes & gains, & Stylet pour ecrire; Ecrans geographiques pour 1'instruction de la Jeunesse, & autres jolies Gravures, Livres d'Astronomie, de Geographic & de Mathematiques, & Bibliographic Parisienne, ou Catalogue de Livres, Gravures, &c, qui se trouvent a Paris, avec leur prix, le format, 1'edition & le nom des Libraires qui les vendent. II vend aussi des Etuis de Mathematiques, des plus complets, & generalement tout ce qui concerne les Sciences. II distribue gratuitement le Catalogue & le Prospectus de tous ses Ouvrages a ceux qui desireront en prendre connoissance, tant en Geographic que Librairie & Almanachs; parmi lesquels se trouvent les Combinaisons de la Loterie de 1'Ecole Royale Militaire, pour servir d'instruction sur cette Loterie, & d'eclaircissement sur les divers avantages que Ton en peut tirer: comme aussi les Etrennes de Minerve aux Artistes; Encyclopedic economique des secrets, extraits de plus de neuf cens Auteurs & des meilleures recettes.
ANNE GODLEWSKA
4 Jomard: The Geographic Imagination and the First Great Facsimile Atlases
Introduction Although he is today largely forgotten, Edme Frangois Jomard was one of the most important geographers and indeed an important personality of early nineteenth century France. He lived a total of 85 years and his experience spanned the Ancien regime, the Revolution and its regimes, the First Empire, the Consulat, the Restoration, both soft and hard versions, the July Monarchy, the Second Republic, and the Second Empire. The early nineteenth century was not only a period of political and social experimentation in France, it was also home to major developments in the life sciences, mathematics, physics, astronomy and the then still nascent social sciences. Jomard lived in that context and took a major part in a wide variety of social and scientific activities. He was in the first class of students produced by the famous Ecole Polytechnique. The Ecole Polytechnique embraced both science and technology and through its instructors and its students, in particular Auguste Comte and Enfantin, it ultimately elevated engineering and the engineering mentality to the status of an ideology to be embraced at home as a religion and exported abroad as enlightenment. Jomard was by no means the least of the products of this education. As a graduate of the school, he was among those selected by Monge and Napoleon for the expedition to Egypt and accompanied Napoleon and his 150 or so scholars on that expedition. There he served as a geographer producing maps, exploring ruins, and writing reports on the state of this or that aspect of the country. Soon after his return, and as a result of the death of two other editors, Conte and Lancret, he was handed the job of editing and publishing the monumental 22 volume Description de I'Egypte. This work he carried out from 1807 to 1822. The
no / Anne Godlewska expedition and Jomard's publication of it served to reawaken French interest in Egypt, in Egyptology, or, otherwise put, in the place of ancient Egypt in the French intellectual (artistic, religious and scientific) consciousness. Indeed, the expedition and the Description reawakened interest in the entire Middle East which became and remains one of France's principal global preoccupations. Finally, Jomard was instrumental in securing a copy of the Rosetta stone (which the English forces had confiscated from the French upon the latter's departure from Egypt) and he thus played an instrumental role in the deciphering of the hieroglyphs - but more about that later. A member of the Institut in his early twenties, he was an increasingly powerful and important man. His education in the Ecole Polytechnique and his experience of the Egyptian expedition had given him access to some of the best scientists and most powerful figures in France. But, above all, Jomard was every inch a geographer. In 1821 he was one of the principal founders of the Paris Geographical Society and he served repeatedly throughout his career as one of its officers and on its commissions. Toward the end of his life, as geography turned more and more toward the study of peoples and social phenomena, he was also one of the founders of the Ethnographic Society of Paris, and served as its President the year of his death. As part of his work for the Paris Geographical Society, he became something of an official government-sponsored director of geographic research and exploration. In this capacity, he wrote letters to most of the explorers who sought any contact with the government of France in the first half of the nineteenth century. It was with, and often as a result of, Jomard's support that these explorers received financial assistance for their travels and found publishers and a network of intellectual contacts upon their return. Most geographers of the period had something of a preoccupation with education, and in particular with primary education and the role that geography could play in forming the understanding of children - very much a continuing echo of the concerns of the Enlightenment and the Ideologues. Jomard spent much of his life fighting for the universalization of primary education. He also believed firmly in the benefit that French scientific and technical education could bestow on "less civilised' nations and advocated the establishment of French schools abroad and the transfer of foreign students to France for higher education - a tradition that continues in modified form today. Finally, as a geographer, he founded and headed the Departement des Cartes et Plans, at the Royal Library in Paris. This establishment gave maps a status as historical records and national
Jomard: The Geographic Imagination and Facsimile Atlases / 111 treasures on a par with books, medals, manuscripts paintings and prints and thus led to the collection and preservation of an extraordinary number of cartographic treasures. Jomard, then, was an important man in his own time and many of the effects and consequences of his efforts are still felt in modern France and certainly within the discipline of geography today. In truth, Jomard's facsimile atlas is not the most important of his works. In fact, it was posthumously published and was still incomplete upon publication. But the atlas does have its own historic importance as one of the first so-called facsimile atlases and it is also important for what it reveals of the geographic imagination and scientific personality of Jomard. Jomard had a very particular and surprisingly consistent understanding of geography which we will here explore through a selection of his publications, including his facsimile atlas. He also suffered from a scientific territoriality which is, sadly, not rare enough in the world of academics. Both of these aspects of Jomard are clear in the nature of the Monuments de la geographic and in the controversy surrounding its production. The Nature of Jomard's Geographic Imagination Jomard's understanding of geography started, culminated and ended with maps. His first task as a working man was the production of maps in Egypt and his last publication was an atlas of old maps: the aforementioned Monument. Few of his many publications wandered very far from the subject of cartography. His understanding of cartography, however, went far beyond a graphic representation of topography. For Jomard, geography (during the first half of his career there was no word to distinguish cartography from geography) was not only the finished map but a research procedure. The geographic method entailed the ordered laying out and measurement of phenomena and a search for understanding through the spatial information and patterns that this created. This method could be applied to virtually everything in one way or another. For Jomard, that is what it meant to be a modern geographer. The modern geographer was not merely a map maker, someone who produced national, regional or local surveys, but a scholar who applied the geographer's scientific methodologies to the problems of the day. Geographic method then was to be applied to problems as wide ranging as the nature, chronology and language of ancient Egypt, to the establishment of a way of studying the diverse peoples of the earth. His approach was modern, in Jo-
112 / Anne Godlewska mard's view, because it reflected the methodologies developed through some of the most respected sciences of his day, the natural sciences. A search for understanding through the examination of spatial patterns has a decidedly modern ring to it. When we as social scientists talk about spatial distributions and spatial patterns, there is behind this discussion an awareness of and a curiosity about the complex and constructed nature of society and a conviction that exploring its spatial patterns can reveal formerly hidden dimensions of social existence. Therein lies the modernity of the concept of spatial analysis within the context of the social sciences. For the most part, Jomard's spatial focus was far from modern. Indeed, it is characterised by the application of old geographic methodologies to new problems not readily subject to analysis by those means. There is in Jomard's writings one important exception to this general observation, his Comparaison de plusieurs annees d'observations faites sur la population frangaise* Jomard, as I have already mentioned, was interested in primary education. In addition, as a former Polytechnicien who had worked with the military engineers (who had been ordered to collect such statistics), and as a colleague of both Jean-Baptiste Fourier and Gilbert-Joseph-Gaspard Chabrol de Volvic, Jomard had some interest in social statistics. In 1827 he responded to a memoir written by LouisFranqois Benoiston de Chateauneuf2 in which the author had wondered aloud whether there might be a relationship between criminality, or the incidence of criminal behaviour, and ignorance. In 1827 Jomard argued that the question raised by this author was unanswerable as so many other factors could be at play: domestic conflict, impropriety, the number of illegitimate children, the incidence of gambling, etc.3 In 1832, however, based on statistics provided by the military, the judiciary and those gathered on primary education, he concluded that, based on the small number and longitudinally limited nature of the statistics collected to date, there was indeed some sign of a correlation between a lower incidence of criminality and primary education in both men and women.4 As a geographer, and taking a leaf out of the book of Charles Dupin who had produced a map of France relating education and productivity in the different provinces of France,5 he took the problem a step further and argued, characteristically, that the problem should be mapped. He proposed but did not execute a sort of a cartogram comparing by province population size, the number of delinquents, and the size of the population benefitting from a primary education. The cartogram would retain approximative relative location only, and abandon both absolute location and topography. In a sense,
Jomard: The Geographic Imagination and Facsimile Atlases / 113 the idea is strikingly modern, but if we think carefully about the proposed map and look at his description of the relationship of social statistics to geography we discover that Jomard had not really applied geography or a geographic methodology to a social problem. The map was not really part of the analysis. He was not proposing a spatial analysis of social behaviour, but the straightforward depiction of results on a map. The map was the form to which he was drawn, but geography was not part of the analysis. It was no more than a backdrop. He wrote: With respect to the territorial surface, it is clear that it has no relationship to the moral and statistical problem which involves only population, that is those living and moving masses, as they are to be found in a variety of social conditions, or at different stages of life. Still, geographic position should be considered from another point of view: that is, the proximity or distance of places is not without influence on people in the margins of regions.6
This is not to say that this exploration of the possibilities of statistical mapping was unimportant, simply, that its relationship to modern social scientific geography is limited. Certainly, it was in this realm of social statistics that Jomard's mapping methodology has the most modern and intellectually convincing ring to it. It is worth looking critically at how he applied his mapping methodology to a variety of problems throughout his career. Much earlier in his career, when Napoleon, his forces, and the scholars selected to accompany Napoleon (including Jomard) invaded Egypt in 1798, remarkably little was known about the language, culture and history of Ancient Egypt. The hieroglyphs were undecipherable and, naturally enough, there seemed to be little memory among the local peoples as to the meaning of the ruins amidst which they lived. The intellectuals of the expedition were overwhelmed by the monumental nature of the architecture, by the strangeness of the images, in short by the suggested wealth of the culture from which they found themselves barred. Unable to tell a 2,000 year old building from 10,000 year old remains, or a 1,600 year old zodiacal representation from one of 10,000 years, they struggled to develop ways of interpreting and understanding what stood before them and of somehow fitting it in to their knowledge of ancient history. Their sense of astonishment, awe, excitement, and anxious fear of missing something important are palpable in the sketches depicting their work to be
114 / Anne Godlewska found in the Description de I'Egypte. All the scholars tended to use the procedures and insight that their various educations had bestowed upon them. Fourier, for example, who was a mathematician, sought insight into the six zodiacal depictions he found on the ceiling of temples not far from Thebes through astronomical analysis.7 One might, he argued, be able to use ancient zodiacs as a calendar if they indicated clearly and incontestably the relationship of the signs with the solstices and the equinoxes. Sadly they did not. Jomard principally sought to use the traditional methodologies of geography to break the Egyptian code: measurement and erudition. The temples and ruins of Egypt could be made comprehensible and reasonable if one could but understand the scientific knowledge that was their foundation. One might understand Egyptian science perhaps precisely through the science that was quintessentially, Jomard believed, theirs: geometry - or what he called 'geometry/ that is measurement and mapping.8 Looking at the monuments surrounding him, and increasingly convinced of the numerical and scientific sophistication of the ancient Egyptians and perhaps projecting his own fascination with 'geometry/ he became convinced that there was both a graphic and a numerical key to their interpretation. The regularity and monumentality of the pyramids alone suggested that. He was convinced that the Egyptians had been innately geometrical and that a rational system lay behind all of the ruins of Egypt. He further believed and argued that this system was decipherable and would give considerable insight into ancient Egypt and the influence of ancient Egypt on the modern world, if one but knew how to study it. So, together with many of the other members of the scientific commission, and particularly the other engineers and geographers, he laboriously measured and mapped the ruins of Egypt. This had a double function: it was integral to the analytic and descriptive methodology of a geographer, and, should analysis fail, Jomard believed that it, like any topographic map, would record the truth for analysis later perhaps from a different perspective.9 In short, the engineer/geographer/ scholars were also trying to capture and pocket ancient Egypt so that they could go home and think about it. Indeed, it was upon the basis of this measurement that Jomard later constructed an elaborate argument, supported by liberal interpretations of classical and some Arab sources (including Herodotus; Diodorus of Sicily; Strabo; Artemidorus of Ephesus in Strabo; Strabo and the periplus of the Erythrean sea; Eratosthenes in Strabo; Hipparcus in Strabo; Aristides; the Antonin Itinerary; and Pliny among the ancient
Jomard: The Geographic Imagination and Facsimile Atlases / 115 sources; and Abou-1-Farage, Abd el-Latyf, Mohalli, Joseph be Altiphasi, and Ebn Salamas among the Arab sources) to the effect that the ancient Egyptians had had a universal system of 'natural' measurement not all that unlike the metric system of Revolutionary France, with the implication that it.had even been perhaps more accurate than the modern French system.10 This suggested that Egypt might be the cradle of Western and particularly French (via Greek and Roman) scientific culture.11 The modern reader of Jomard's 'Memoire sur le systeme metrique des anciens Egyptiens contenant des recherches sur leurs connoissances geometriques et sur les mesures des autres peuples de 1'antiquite' is immediately overwhelmed by the seemingly meaningless multiplication of measurements and detailed comparison of the writings of ancient sources and awed by the fastidiousness of the research. The memoir, however, is not meaningless when taken on its own terms. Jomard fundamentally believed that insight into ancient Egypt would come from mapping its monuments and he employed both modern methods of geographic research available to him: on-theground measurement with the best available instrumentation and the more venerable and tried method, relatively critical consultation of the accounts of the ancients.12 The results were extraordinarily erudite and admirable for their basis in terrain measurement and field research, as Jomard was frequently to remind his critics and colleagues, but nevertheless absurd. The methodology of mapping simply did not match the problem which at heart was the decipherment of the hieroglyphs. Jomard's memoir was published in 1817 and was not vigorously attacked and discredited until i823-13 There is no sign in Jomard's writings after 1823, however, that he ever accepted that his method and approach had been in any way inappropriate to the problem. Much more appropriate to the problem at hand was his cartographic approach to the direction of overseas, and particularly African, exploration in the 18205, the 18305 and particularly the 18405. Here Jomard played the role of a director of research both providing and requesting information. In the case of instructions provided to M. Panet for his trip from Senegal to Algeria, he began by creating a sort of written map of the route to be followed which was, in part, an annotation or criticism of existing maps. According to this, and in addition to the route to be followed, M. Panet was informed as to where and how he should select his guides; the type of topographic information he should record; what he could expect in terms of density of population in particular areas; what areas and peoples to avoid as
n6 / Anne Godlewska needlessly risky; how to dress and what demeanour to assume in particular areas; places he should avoid tarrying for too long to avoid drawing suspicion and hostility; what towns to visit and what he might expect to find there; possible side trips to take; and, perhaps most importantly, the documents, publications and experts to consult before leaving. Here, clearly, a map was being filled in and the role of the geographer, at once familiar with the state of the cartographic knowledge of the country and possessing sufficient erudition to be aware of the major publications in existence or research already carried out, was to direct future work. This geographic authority was recognised both by individual explorers who approached the Geographical Society (and sometimes Jomard himself for guidance and support) and by the government. In the case of M. Panet, it was the Minister of the Marine who approached the Geographical Society for help in compiling the necessary instructions. Jomard played this role with Rene Caille,14 Frederic Cailliaud/5 and a number of lesser explorers.16 Often the principal aims of the expedition had already been laid out by either the explorer or the government. It was then Jomard's role to work through and around these. He unfailingly asked for material valuable for 'constructing an exact map' - or a map as exact as possible. In the case of the travels of M. Prax through the northern Sahara, and no doubt inspired by the work of the Commission to Algeria, he asked Prax to gather linguistic information for the resolution of a geographic problem: he thought that perhaps inscriptions, and particularly Libyan inscriptions, collected throughout the region might give a clue as to the origins and past migrations of the various peoples of the northern Sahara. Here he was asking an explorer to carry out much the sort of work that he himself had carried out in Egypt. In this case, the aim was to resolve a different sort of geographic problem and one much more susceptible to solution through traditional geographic methods. Another area of research where we find Jomard unfailingly map bound or, more correctly, bound by a preoccupation with the ordered laying out and measurement of phenomena and a search for understanding through the spatial information and patterns that this creates, is in his ethnographic work at the very end of his life. The results were no more happy than with the research he carried out in Egypt. Jomard was certainly aware of and responsive to the major intellectual concerns of his time and from the late eighteenth century there had been a growing interest in the study of the various physical appearances of
Jomard: The Geographic Imagination and Facsimile Atlases / 117 'man/ the various languages of 'man/ and very gradually the social existence of humanity. In this vein, Jomard broke the study of 'ethnographie' into 3 major categories: 1. The shady of man through his language 2. The study of man through his physical condition 3. The study of man through the works of his intelligence and industry Aware that something beyond both the variety of human language and physical anthropology was drawing the interest of scholars/7 Jomard proposed the study of objects produced by humans, or human artifacts. The aim was not, however, the interpretation of these artifacts so as to reveal the social organisation or the lived reality of different peoples, but a means of mapping and fixing in place the different peoples of the world. Thus, what interested him about the third approach was that it had the potential to impose an order on the subject not unlike the order imposed in the natural sciences by classification. What he was after was 'the order which puts each thing in its place and fixes it invariably'18 and a 'conducting thread of sorts which it will suffice, in a sense, to hold on to so as to not lose our way."9 The study of human beings was clearly a complicated affair difficult to order and to map. What Jomard was proposing in his methodological classification of the products of extra-European industry (broadly understood) was an extension of maps and mapping to 'include pretty much all of the objects that an observer will see while travelling ../20 It is true that, in order to know the earth, it was necessary to start by determining the position of particular places: to establish their real distances and their respective situations, their relative and absolute elevation, to study finally their natural productions. In other words, it was necessary to start by 'geography' and physical geography. Today the map of the world can neither satisfy our avid curiosity nor the progress of contemporary knowledge. It is, in any case, sufficiently advanced to allow us to turn our efforts in another, more important, direction. Here I am speaking of the distinction between the human races and the universal knowledge of their idioms, of the character of their physiognomy, and their social state. This is what almost all of the nations of Europe are starting to do ... After all shouldn't this be the final aim of the description of the inhabitable earth?21
n8 / Anne Godlewska Jomard, then, was advocating a shift in the focus of the geographic imagination from topography, physical geography and location 'because today distance and space are nothing/ to the mapping of 'man/22 Jomard divided the products of human industry into ten major categories including images; tools used for procuring food; clothing; and objects to do with housing and building; domestic economy; defence; the arts and sciences (including commerce); music; customs and usages; and religion. A map composed of all of these products of human industry would necessarily have a distinctive form. It would be less a document than a museum. Indeed a 'museum of geography and of travel' is just what Jomard had in mind. Its creation, for all the difference in form, was no less a job for a geographer. All objects within it would have a double classification: "by subject' and 'geographic/ But for a geographer who, it could be said, had spent his most active years mapping monuments, the link between the map and the museum as the final product clearly lay in both the concept of the monument and in the process of research capable of elucidating monuments. In a passage which carries us back to Egypt and forward to his facsimile atlas, Jomard suggested the mapping methodology connecting all of his work: It is, thus, through the thoughtful and tenacious study of the monuments of antiquity that one can begin to delve into the secrets of its architecture. It is even possible to say that all of science can be included, appreciated and judged by its productions. This principle, which I consider a general principle, is above all applicable to ethnographic science.23
It was a mapping methodology precisely because what Jomard meant by a 'thoughtful and tenacious study' was the erection of a descriptive system capable of putting every object definitively and unquestionably into its proper place. The Nature and Importance of Jomard's Facsimile Atlas It was entirely fitting, then, that Jomard's last work, the one he devoted to the history of geography, should have the title Monuments de la geographic and be devoted to the history of mapping. This was not to be 'a doctrinal treatise' or a 'new general and critical history of geography/24 What, asked Jomard, would be the point of reproducing what has already been said by, a large number of predecessors.25
Jomard: The Geographic Imagination and Facsimile Atlases / 119 This enterprise, well executed will be, in a way, a history of geography according to maps; a history written by itself, that is to say, by its graphic productions. It will, thus, be the most authentic and the most certain of histories.26
Just as the architecture of Egypt, graphically captured, had spoken to Jomard, and just as he was to anticipate that artifacts would provide all the insight necessary for a solid ethnography, maps would best tell the history of geography. All Jomard would have to do was to select and reproduce the best examples with fidelity. The unfolding map of human discovery would take shape in the minds of his readers as they gazed at his selection. The facsimile atlas, then, would serve to bring the history of geography to the attention of scholars who seemed to have forgotten its importance and it would also democratize access to these rare documents.27 Of course, Jomard, as a cartographer, was far from naive about maps and warned that maps had to be looked at critically as they could not be assumed to reflect the knowledge of the time in which they were produced, but merely the knowledge or understanding of a particular power or geographer.28 Jomard's atlas ressembled an atlas factice or gathering of maps. It was an unbound collection of individual largely black and white sheets almost entirely lithographed by E. Rembielinski (although occasional sheets were lithographed by Hedin) and published by Kaeppelin. It comprised a title page and table of contents and 21 cartographic representations in 80 sheets. The text was to be published separately but, in fact, appeared only posthumously. Six of the maps were sold individually at prices ranging from 9 to 25 francs. In the Monuments the images were presented chronologically but without any further systematic organisation. This despite the fact that the collection included some works which were, strictly speaking, not maps, including three celestial globes (two of which were Arabic or Cufic) and an astrolabe. The remaining maps were, for the most part, facsmiles of manuscript maps that represented the highlights of Medieval cartography. Jomard explained in his brief and posthumously published Introduction that he had chosen this period because an atlas composed of earlier or later maps would have been less interesting: maps produced after the sixteenth century Ortelian reform were less strikingly different from modern maps and, as printed maps, were available in sufficiently large numbers to make their reproduction relatively less worthwhile; maps of antiquity and 'oriental' maps would be too few
12O / Anne Godlewska to make a book or to allow conclusions about the history of discovery. His selection included the Matthew Paris map; a Medieval map of Lombardy; the Hereford World Map; the Martin Behaim Globe; the Juan de la Cosa map; and a Descelliers map of 1546. Some of these had been only recently discovered and their value was far from recognized even in Jomard's time. Thanks to Jomard's dispute with Santarem over ownership of the concept of a facsimile atlas - about which more later - we know something of the procedures followed by Jomard. The greatest part of the work, and it was work that went hand in hand with his functions as director of the Departement des Cartes et Plans, was the identification, purchase, borrowing or copying of maps around Europe. We know that one of the maps, the Juan de la Cosa map, belonged, at this stage, to a friend of Jomard's, the well-known geographer Baron Walckenaer. One of the maps, in a situation of possible conflict of interest, belonged to Jomard: the Descelliers world map of 1546. In order to procure some of the others, he claimed to have travelled over a period of eleven years in England, Belgium, Italy, Germany and Holland. Some maps were actually sent to him. But some of the most spectacular of the collection, such as the Hereford Mappaemundi or the Matthew Paris map, were copied on the spot and the copies then sent to Jomard. Taken on its own terms, apart from any assessment of the value of facsimiles in general, what was the quality of this work? We do have the means to consider this question. Approximately eight of the twenty-one representations are now to be found at the Bibliotheque Nationale. Photographic reproductions of some of the maps not at the Bibliotheque are also available. In addition, one of the copies made for Jomard is still to be found in the Departement des Cartes et Plans. Finally, Jomard and his successors kept registers of acquisitions and these provide some clue as to the cost of the exercise. Altogether, these records allow us to analyse the stages of production and assess both the procedures and the quality of the work. Both the Medieval map of Lombardy (Jomard's Map 6) and the Carte Pisane (Jomard's map 11) are to be found at the Bibliotheque Nationale. A comparison of the two maps reveals that the maps were copied with considerable care and precision. Jomard did not use colour and so on these maps, which were coloured in the original, there was inevitably some loss of information and certainly a loss of effect. On the Carte Pisane (end of the twelfth century), which is incidentally the oldest surviving portolan chart in the world, while he succeeds in
Jomard: The Geographic Imagination and Facsimile Atlases / 121 differentiating place names in red and black by filling in or leaving in outline the letters, he does not capture the different use of brown and green for rhumb lines. There is also no sign of a real attempt to maintain distinctions in line width on the topographic drawing. Part of Jomard's purpose must have been the simplification of the drawing through the elimination of noise arising from the map medium. Thus, the outline of the parchment is simplified and cuts and tears are not necessarily recorded. Also missing are details that the original cartographer would have preferred to hide, such as the half erased tracing lines to be found around the word 'levante' in the neck of the parchment. The result is a document that is often easier to read than the original - partly perhaps because the original was clearer 150 years ago than it is today - but certainly also thanks to a deliberate decision not to reproduce the look of the medium. But what is above all clear from a comparison of the original and the lithograph is how careful and time-consuming the work of the lithographer and/or copyist was. Unfortunately, there is no way of telling whether the lithographer worked from the original or from a copy made at the Bibliotheque Royale. A comparison of the colour copy of the Matthew Paris map with the lithographic copy suggests that errors or changes in information are more likely attributable to the original copyist. Apart from the difference in colour which demanded some systematic alteration in symbolism, there is no significant difference that I was able to detect between the hand drawn copy and the lithograph. Rembielinski was clearly a careful and fastidious lithographer. The critical dimension, then, for the reproduction of works not at the Bibliotheque Royale (as it was then known) lay with the quality of the copyist. It is therefore strange that the name and qualification of the copyists is nowhere recorded. When Jomard bought a copy of the Behaim globe from a map dealer, it came with a 'certificate of ressemblance' guaranteed by that dealer.29 Yet there is no record of who made the copy of the Matthew Paris map and throughout the Monuments and Jomard's Introduction there is no mention of the principles according to which copyists worked or, indeed, how they were selected, vetted, or paid. There is little question that the work was deemed important and expensive. Thus while, for example, Jomard paid 245 francs for the original twelfth century Carte Pisane (which Jomard believed to be a fourteenth century map), he paid 300 francs for a copy of the Behaim globe and 337 francs for the colour copy of the Matthew Paris map. This absence of discussion of the important nuts and bolts of the reproduction of the maps suggests Jomard's distance from the nitty
122 / Anne Godlewska gritty work of the atlas. It suggests that Jornard was above all the manager and publisher of this work rather than the individual responsible for the detailed work it entailed. Still, the management of the atlas was not a small job: even once the work of the copyist and lithographer were done, fastidious work remained. It is clear from the incomplete state of the lithograph of the Behaim globe that in the case of text-laden documents, Jomard had had the lithography of the topographic information and of the texts done separately. After the lithography was completed and before the atlas was published, any areas of extensive text had to be pasted onto the map sheets. Clearly, in at least one case, that of the Behaim globe, the atlas's manager failed to complete the detailed work. Jomard's Conflict with Santarem: Competing Conceptions? While Jomard may have maintained some distance from the physical work on the atlas, it was a project close to his heart. It positively resonated with the principal preoccupations of his career as a geographer. Thus, when he wrote in 1847, that geography should tell its history through its own works, through the variety of its graphic productions, ... that idea does not belong to Mr. de Santarem30 he was speaking the truth. That was very particularly his idea and his approach. It did not occur to him, however, or perhaps he did not care to think, that someone else should arrive at the same, or a more complete conclusion by a different route. Jomard's Monuments de la geographic was published sometime after 1847. The introduction to the work was published posthumously in 1879, a considerable period after Jomard's death in 1862, although it may have been written sometime in the 18405. The Vicount Santarem's Atlas compose de mappemondes et de cartes hydrographiques et historiques depuis le Xle jusqu'au XVIIe siecle was published in France in 1842. This publication was followed in 1848, before the publication of either Jomard's atlas or his Introduction, by a three-volume discussion and description, map by map, of the maps to be found in Santarem's facsimile atlas.31 While Jomard's reproductions had been black and white, many of Santarem's were in colour. Further, a detailed comparison of a few sheets demonstrates that at least some of Santarem's copies were truer to the original. Thus, comparing Jomard's reproduction of the Turin Beatus map (Figure 4.1)
Jomard: The Geographic Imagination and Facsimile Atlases / 123 with that of Santarem (Figure 4.2), we find that Jomard's copyist has added a sophistication to the depictions of the winds personified not to be found in the original (Figure 4.3). Getting a good copy was clearly not a straightforward matter, as Santarem commented in his discussion of this map: Pasini produced a wood engraving of the copy of the world map to be found in the manuscript of the Royal Library of Turin [See Pasini's catalogue: Codices Ms. Bibliothecae Regis Taurensis Athenoei digesti, etc. Taurini, 1749, vol. n, p. 29], and we reproduced his engraving in our atlas with the utmost fidelity. But when we were having it coloured against the original, our scholarly colleague at the Royal Academy of Sciences of Turin, Mr. Amedee Peyron, had the extraordinary consideration to critically compare Pasini's engraving with the original. He found important errors and he took the time to correct them according to the manuscript. We are the beneficiary of his work on this monument.32
In truth, neither reproduction is of sufficiently good quality to permit informed work today, given present standards of reproduction and the detailed level of analysis currently employed in the study of such documents. Santarem's reproduction is, nevertheless, closer to the original than Jomard's. In addition, Santarem labelled his maps more completely within his atlas and certainly described them more completely within what amounted to his three volume history of cartography. Finally, Santarem's atlas was four or five times the size of Jomard's and further had been produced more systematically. That is, it was divided into sections devoted to maps of different types and periods. In a vitriolic and public attack on Santarem in 1847, Jomard claimed to have been working on his own facsimile for many years.33 Santarem, he argued, had stolen his idea and then had massively undercut his publication. There is no doubt that Jomard felt both indignation and deception - although why he waited until five years after the production of Santarem's atlas to express it is something of a mystery. Jomard's attack is full of self-contradiction and confusion. Carelessly and unwittingly, he claimed three separate dates for the conception of the facsimile atlas: 1829; 1830; and 1832. As proof of his priority, he rallied a considerable phalanx of scholars whom he claimed to have consulted. The list proves only that he was active as Conservator of the map collection at the Bibliotheque Nationale and that he might have
124 / Anne Godlewska
Figure 4.1 One of 'Dix Mappemondes ...' [the Turin Beatus map] from Jomard's monuments de la geographic [1847?]. Provisional sheet number 58-9. This one Jomard described simply as coming from the Royal Library of Turin. By permission of the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris.
Jomard: The Geographic Imagination and Facsimile Atlases / 125
Figure 4.2 The Turin Beatus map reproduced in colour in section i of Santarem's Atlas compose de mappemondes et de cartes hydrographiques et historiques (1842). It is analyzed on pages 127-53 °f Santarem's Essai sur I'histoire de la geographie et de la cartographie. By permission of the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris.
126 / Anne Godlewska
Figure 4.3 A photographic reproduction of the original Turin Beatus map in Prince Yusuf Kamal's Monumenta Cartographica Africae et Aegypti (Cairo: 1926-51): Volume 8, plate 752. By permission of the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris.
Jomard: The Geographic Imagination and Facsimile Atlases / 127 been working for both himself and the library at the same time. He argued that most of the plates of his atlas had already been engraved in 1842. But they were not, in any case, published before 1847, and his description of how many were already engraved and the number still awaiting engraving does not correspond to the final number produced. Further, Jomard claimed that he had had no financial assistance in the production of his atlas which, if one counts the costs of the copies from which the lithographer worked, is completely untrue. Santarem's response to the attack was dignified but deadly. The proof of the quality of Santarem's research and thought was to be found in his atlas and in his three-volume analysis and discussion of the atlas - both of which works won accolades from, among others, Antoine-Jean Letronne and Karl Ritter. There is only one thing that can mark off scholarly terrain, Santarem pointed out, and that is scholarly publication, not the vague possession of an idea which one may or may not have shared with some friends. Further, what was Jomard really claiming? The concept of making facsimile maps? That idea, said Santarem, had been around for some time and he duly provided a list of twenty-three map reproductions produced since 173O.34 Was it the idea of a facsimile atlas capable of recounting the entire history of geography? He can relax: I am in no way trying to encompass the entire history of geography. That was never my idea. Reading the prodigious works of the most encyclopedic scholar of our day (M. de Humboldt) would have dissuaded me from that. And anyway, no matter how universal the knowledge of a scholar, life would be too short to successfully complete such a project, that is in the manner in which I understand that it should be carried out. Mr. Jomard has nothing to fear in the way of competition from anyone.35
What really mattered, what really took time, effort and scholarship, Santarem pointed out, was not the reproduction of maps but their study and analysis.36 In many ways, the fight with Santarem, in which Santarem engaged with considerable regret and distaste, calls to mind Jomard's more muted but no more successful battle with Champollion in the 18205, the scholar who without setting foot in Egypt or seeing a single monument in the flesh, so to speak, broke the code and first read the hieroglyphs of Egypt.37 In that case too, Jomard was simply not prepared to admit that a scholar with an approach fundamentally different from
128 / Anne Godlewska his own (Santarem after all was less interested in the history of geography than in the history of the Portuguese discoveries) had achieved what he, the geographer Jomard, could not. This attitude reflected a marked sense of intellectual territoriality and possessiveness (well demonstrated in other publications primarily devoted to laying questionable claim to intellectual priority38) and a peculiar attachment to a traditionally geographic methodology, the mapping of whatever problem arose. Non-geographers had no attachment to this methodology. It is, however, important to be fair to Jomard in this matter. Not so much out of a sense of solidarity, but because it casts light on the often bizarre way in which discoveries are made and our collective thought and understanding takes shape. Jomard could not have hoped to decipher the hieroglyphs or to understand the civilisation of ancient Egypt by mapping either the terrain or the monuments. That is utterly obvious to us today and it may even have been clear to some contemporaries. Due perhaps to his training and his received understanding of how to tackle unresolved problems, this was not clear to Jomard. So, in what seems to us utter futility, he undertook the mapping and cartographic analysis of whatever he deemed important and puzzling. It was, however, in part, that mapping operation which drew the attention of a wide variety and a large number of French scholars (one is tempted to call it a 'critical mass of scholars), including Champollion. It was also those same maps or map-like sketches which allowed scholars such as Champollion to begin to study the hieroglyphs without setting foot in Egypt. In a sense then, Jomard's impossible approach did lead scholars in the right direction, though not in the way he anticipated. Nor did it assign him the role he coveted. Conclusion As one of the most important and best known geographers of the first half of the nineteenth century, Jomard's conception of geography was important and had special weight. As we can see from an analysis of his most important publications, including his facsimile atlas, his conception of geography was intrinsically tied up with maps and mapping. As I have described elsewhere, mapping was increasingly regarded, as the nineteenth century advanced, as a technology rather than as a science. Jomard, however, refused to abandon this conception of geography. As a result of his education and the many encounters with remarkable intellectuals and researchers that his position and long
Jomard: The Geographic Imagination and Facsimile Atlases / 129 life afforded him, however, Jomard also sought to remain open and responsive to the major intellectual and social developments of his time. These included the growing interest in the study of humans and human societies; the increasingly important role accorded social statistics; the passion for and interest in pre-Greek societies; the advancement of French industrial society; and the development of universal primary education. Jomard struggled to render geography, as he understood it, useful in this new social world. For him, however, the essence of geography was not space, place, distribution, movement, and a propensity for spatial analysis, as it largely is today, but the map. For Jomard, the history of civilisation could be summed up in that 'monument' of Western thought, the map. It was through his facsimile atlas that he sought to bring the history of mapping to a wider audience. In that sense, we can think of Jomard as one of the earliest historians of cartography and one of the first academic map librarians. In addition, however, he sought to stretch the concept of the map and particularly the concept of mapping so that it could encompass the analysis of non-geographic problems. The results were often problematic and the attempt often placed Jomard in a difficult position vis-a-vis many of the other scholars less or differently bound by scholarly traditions. And while he did not always respond to valid if harshly phrased criticism in the most laudatory fashion, there is something enormously positive about the effort of extension. Perhaps, then, it is not so surprising that some measure of enlightenment and understanding came from it. NOTES I would like to thank Monique Pelletier for her valuable help in the consultation of the relevant documents at the Departement des cartes et plans, (B.N., Paris) and Joan Winearls for coaxing me into studying Edme Francois Jomard and for her editorial work on this essay. 1 Edme Francois Jomard, Comparaison de plusieurs annees d'observations faites sur la population frangaise a divers ages, sous le rapport du degre d'instruction. Lu a 1'Academie des sciences le 27 aout 1832. (Paris: Imprimerie de Decourchant, 1832). 2 Louis-Francois Benoiston de Chateauneuf, Considerations sur les enfants trouves dans les principaux etats de I'Europe (Paris: 1824) and Extraits des recherches statistiques sur la ville de Paris (Paris: 1824).
130 / Anne Godlewska 3 Jomard, Du nombre de delits criminals compare a I'etat de I'instruction primaire. Par un membre de la Societe formee a Paris pour I'amelioration de I'enseignement elementaire. (Paris: Chez L. Colas, 1827). 4 Jomard, Comparaison de plusieurs annees d'observations, 8. He used the inadequacy of modern statistics to argue for better and more complete State collection of statistics: 'Why don't the ministries of commerce, the navy and finance publish analogous documents annually and, further, why don't we take advantage of the organisation of the national guard which can make the gathering together of these statistics easier than in any other country in the world.' ('On se demande pourquoi les ministeres du commerce, de la marine et des finances, ne publieraient pas annuellement des documens analogues, et encore, pourquoi Ton ne profite pas de 1'organisation de la garde nationale qui en rendrait la reunion plus facile qu'en aucun autre pays du monde.') 5 Le Baron Charles Dupin, Tableau compare de ^instruction populaire avec Vindustrie des departemens d'apres I'exposition de 1827; presente dans la seconde seance du cours de geometrie et de mecanique appliquees aux arts, professe pour les ouvriers ... le 23 decembre 1827 (Paris: J. Tastu, 1828). 6 ('Quant a la superficie du territoire, il est sensible qu'elle est sans aucun rapport avec la question morale et statistique: il s'agit en effet de la population seulement, c'est-a-dire des masses vivantes et agissantes, envisagees dans diverses conditions sociales, ou a differentes epoques de la vie. Toutefois, la position geographique est a considerer sous un certain rapport: c'est en ce que le voisinage ou 1'eloignement des lieux n'est pas sans influence sur les populations limitrophes. II faut done avoir egard a la distance et a la position relative des lieux, mais nullement a la superficie ni a la forme des limites.') Jomard, Comparaison de plusieurs annees, 37. 7 Jean-Baptiste Fourier, 'Premier memoire sur les monumens astronomiques de 1'Egypte,' Description de I'Egypte ou Recueil des observations et des recherches faites en Egypte pendant I'expedition de I'armee frangaise public par les ordres de Sa Majeste I'Empereur Napoleon Le Grand (Paris: Imprimerie imperiale, 1809-1822) Antiquites Memoires 2: 71-87. Jomard, whose basic education included a healthy measure of mathematics and astronomy, also carried out a similar analysis in Edme Francois Jomard, 'Essai d'explication d'un tableau astronomique peint au plafond du premier tombeau des rois de Thebes a 1'ouest de la vallee suivi de recherches sur le symbole des equinoxes. Description de I'Egypte Antiquites Memoires i: 255-61. 8 He unwittingly revealed the dangerous circularity of his reasoning in
Jomard: The Geographic Imagination and Facsimile Atlases / 131 his memoir when he argued that the view, and proof, that the Egyptians were very proficient in geometry 'is essential to the explanation of the results contained in this memoir ../ Jomard, 'Memoire sur le systeme metrique des anciens Egyptiens contenant des recherches sur leurs connoissances geometriques et sur les mesures des autres peucples de 1'antiquite/ Description de I'Egypte, Antiquites Memoires i: 699. 9» The idea of 'truth/ and the belief that he was bringing scientific clarity to the befuddled humanities was dear to Jomard. Speaking about the possibility of determining that state of the 'Sciences' of the ancients' he commented '... geometry, more than any other branch of knowledge, offers the means of achieving truth. In effect, the theorems of geometry do not allow vague interpretations to take hold/ ('... la geometric, plus qu'aucune autre branche de connoissances, off re le moyen de parvenir a la verite; en effet les theoremes de geometric ne laissent point de prises a de vagues interpretations/) Ibid., 699. > This is clear from his quotation taken from Gosselin which attributed the apparent inaccuracy of Greek measures to the modern inability to interpret them properly: This research will lead to the conviction that the itinerary measures used by the ancients were more correct than we thought. When we compare them to the map of the earth, as we know it, it is often difficult and sometimes impossible to decide if the errors apparently in the itineraries are the reponsiblity of the ancients or are due to the limited nature of our current knowledge/ ('On se convaincra, d'apres ces recherches, que les mesures itineraires des anciens sont plus exactes que 1'on ne le croit. En les comparant au plan de la terre, tel qu'il nous est connu, il est souvent difficile, quelquefois meme impossible, de decider si les erreurs que 1'on croit apercevoir dans ces itineraires, doivent etre rejetees plutot sur le compte des anciens que sur 1'imperfection de nos connoissances actuelles.') Jomard, 'Memoire sur le systeme metrique des anciens Egyptiens' i: 495. It is even clearer in Jomard's conclusion concerning the real purpose of the pyramids: they were nothing less than an enormous measurement standard, something like the national meter, the national pound etc. 'This great idea of thus conserving the national measures in some inalterable monument was worthy of imitation by modern peoples and especially by France, to which the universe of scholars owes such a perfect earth measurement and metric system ... It is in this happy alliance of the sciences and the arts, the secret of which only the Egyptians seem to have possessed, which resides perhaps the greatest glory of a civilised nation/ ('Cette haute idee de conserver ainsi les mesures nationales dans quelques monument inal-
132 / Anne Godlewska
11
12
13 14
15
16
17
terable etoit digne d'etre imitee par les peuples modernes, et par la France sur-tout, a qui 1'univers savant doit une mesure de la terre et un systeme metrique si parfaits ... C'est dans cette heureuse alliance des sciences et des arts, dont les Egyptiens semblent seuls avoir eu le secret, qui reside peut-etre la gloire la plus solide pour une nation civilisee.') Jomard, 'Memoire sur le systeme metrique des anciens Egyptiens' i: 531. Indeed, Jomard put it in the clearest of terms: '... these results confirm ... that the great geographic distance measures used by the ancient Greek writers rested on the value of the Egyptian degree.' ('Nonseulement ces resultats confirment la valeur du stade dont a use Eratosthene, mais encore ils prouvent, i. que 1'antiquite possedoit d'excellentes observations; 2. que 1'evaluation des grandes distances geographiques employees par ces anciens auteurs Grecs reposoit sur la valeur du degre Egyptien.') Ibid., i: 502. I say 'relatively' critical as Jomard was capable of baldly uncritical declarations such as: The comparison of the numerous distances provided by the authors [meaning ancient authors], with the map which we measured geometrically in Egypt, will immediately give the value of the great itinerary measures such as the 'schoene,' the stade, the mile, etc.' ('La comparaison des nombreuses distances fournis par les auteurs, avec la carte que nous avons levee geometriquement en Egypte, donnera immediatement la valeur des grandes mesures itineraires, telles que le schoene, le stade, le mille, etc.') Ibid., i: 498. Antoine-Jean Letronne, Notice sur la traduction d'herodote de M. P.L. Courier. (Paris: Firmin Didot, 1823). See Edme Frangois Jomard, Notice historique sur la vie et les voyages de Rene Caille (Paris: Delaunay, 1839) and his Remarques geographiques (Paris, 1830). Jomard, Notice sur le second voyage de M. F. Cailliaud (Paris: Goetschy, 1823) and Frederic Cailliaud and Jomard, Voyage a Meroe, au Fleuve Blanc ... a Syouah ...fait dans les annees 1819, 1820, 1821 et 1822 (Paris: Imprimerie Royale, 1826-27), 4 vo^s and 2 v°ls of plates. For an indication of the scope of this activity see Alfred Fierro, Inventaire des manuscrits de la Societe de geographie (Paris: Bibliotheque Nationale, 1984). This is clear from the definition of 'ethnographic' adopted by the new Societe d'ethnographie in 1859: 'Ethnography is a new science whose aim is "the physical, moral and intellectual study of humanity." In its immediate and popular sense, it is concerned with the search for laws which should preside over the organisation of the nationalities and
Jomard: The Geographic Imagination and Facsimile Atlases / 133
18
19 20 21
the universal economy of the globe. Speaking scientifically, we understand by "nationality" a normal grouping of individuals who are brought together by a communality of feelings, of origin, of traditions, of history, of language, of faculties, of religious or civil customs, of legislation and of artistic instincts. By "universal economy of the globe" we understand the search for the international institutions which should preside over the conservation and progressive development of the resources of the earth and of the beings which inhabit it, in the interest of all of humanity/ ('L'ethnographie est une science nouvelle dont le but est "1'etude physique, morale et intellectuelle de I'humanite." Dans son acception immediate et populaire, elle s'occupe de la recherche des lois qui doivent presider a 1'organisation des nationalites et a 1'economie universelle du globe. Scientifiquement parlant, on entend par "nationalite," une reunion normale d'individus rapproches par une communaute de sentiments, d'origine, de traditions, d'histoire, de langage, de facultes, de coutumes religieuses ou civiles, de legislation et d'instinct artistique. Par "economic universelle du globe," on entend la recherche des institutions internationales qui doivent presider a la conservation et au developpement progressifs des ressources de la terre et des etres qui 1'habitent, dans 1'interet de 1'humanite toute entiere.') Societe d'ethnographic fondee en 1859. Expose general. Actes constitutifs et status - liste des membres - catalogue des publications - recompenses decernees par la societe - prix mis au concours - seances de la societe - bibliothecjue et collections - addresses des fonctionnaires - expositions et conferences - conditions a remplir pour faire membre de la societe. (Paris, Decembre 1868) 1:1. ('Nous ferons ici usage de la methode des naturalistes, qui reunit les avantages de 1'analyse a ceux de la synthese, c'est-a-dire de 1'ordre, qui met chaque chose a sa place et 1'y fixe invariablement.' 'une sorte de fil conducteur, qu'il suffit, en quelque sorte, de saisir pour etre sur de ne pas s'egarer.') Jomard, Classification methodique des produits de I'industrie extra-Europeenne ou objets provenant des voyages lointains. (Fragment lu a la societe d'ethnographie, le 12 Avril 1862), 3-4. ('une sorte de fil conducteur, qu'il suffit, en quelque sorte, de saisir pour etre sur de ne pas s'egarer.') Ibid., 3. Ibid., 3-4. ('II fallait, il est vrai, pour connaitre le globe, commencer par fixer la position des lieux, etablir leurs distances vraies et leurs situations respectives, leur elevation relative et absolue, etudier enfin leurs productions naturelles: en d'autres termes, on devait commencer par la geographie proprement dite et la geographic physique. Aujourd'hui
134 / Anne Godlewska
22 23
24
25
26
27
28 29 30
31
le plan de la terre ne suffit plus a notre avide curiosite ni au progres actuel des connaissances; ce plan est d'ailleurs, assez avance pour qu'on tourne ses efforts d'un autre cote, plus important encore; je veux parler de la distinction des races humaines et de la connaissance universelle de leurs idiomes, de leur caractere physiognomique et de leur etat social: c'est ce que 1'on commence a faire chez presque toutes les nations de 1'Europe. ... Apres tout, n'est-ce pas le but final que Ton doit se proposer dans la description de la terre habitable?') Ibid., 8. ('... car aujourd'hui la distance, 1'espace n'est plus rien.') Ibid., 15. ('C'est ainsi que par 1'etude reflechie et perseverente des monuments de 1'antiquite, on peut deviner les secrets de son architecture. II est meme pemis de dire que toute science peut etre comprise, appreciee et jugee par ses productions: ce principe, que je crois general, est surtout applicable a la science ethnographique.') Ibid., 10. ('le travail que nous presentons n'est pas un livre de doctrine, une nouvelle histoire generate et critique de la geographic, ...') Jomard, Introduction a I'atlas des monuments de la geographic (Paris: Arthus Bertrand, 1879), 6-7. Jomard listed: 'Gottschling, Hauber, L. Hubner, Mayer, L. Schlicht, Freret, Formaleoni, Zanetti, Andres, Cladera, Mannert, Sprengel, D. Vincent, de Murr, Tiraboschi, Zurla, Morelli, Heeren, Malte-Brun, Hoffmann, Lelewel, Baldelli, A. Pezzana, Pinkerton, Playfair, Loewenberg, etc ...' ('Cette entreprise bien executee serait, en quelque sorte, une histoire de la geographic par les cartes, histoire faite par elle-meme, c'est-adire par ses productions graphiques; elle serait done la plus authentique et la plus sure.') Jomard, Introduction a I'atlas, 4. Ibid., 49. For more on Jomard's activities as conservator of France's national map collection see Monique Pelletier, 'Jomard et le Departement des Cartes et Plans/ Bulletin de la Bibliotheque nationale 4, i (March 1979): 18-27. Jomard, Introduction a I'atlas, 8-9. Bibliotheque Nationale (France), Departement des Cartes et Plans, Res Ge. D. 7661. ('...la geographie ra center elle-meme son histoire par ses prop res ouvrages, par ses productions graphiques de toute sorte ... cette idee n'apparteint pas a M. de Santarem.') Jomard, 'Sur la publication des monuments de la geographie' (extract from the Bulletin de la Societe de geographie, 22 Juillet 1847), 12. Le Vicomte de Santarem, Essai sur I'histoire de la geographie et de la cartographie pendant le moyen-age et sur les progres de la geographie apres
Jomard: The Geographic Imagination and Facsimile Atlases / 135
32
33 34 35
36 37
38
les grandes decouvertes du XVe siecle, pour servir d'introduction et d'explication a I'atlas compose de mappemondes et de portulans, et d'autres monuments geographiques, depuis le Vie siecle de noire ere jusqu'au XVIIe. (Paris: Imprimerie Maulde et Renou, 1848). (Tasini a fait graver sur bois 1'exemplaire de la mappemonde qui se trouve dans le Ms. de la Bibliotheque royale de Turin [Voyez le catalogue de Pasini: Codices Ms. Bibliothecae Regis Taurensis Athenoei digesti, etc. Taurini, 1749, vol. n, p. 29], et nous avons reproduits sa gravure dans notre atlas avec la plus grande fidelite. Mais 1'ayant fait colorier dernierement sur 1'original, notre savant confrere a 1'Academie royale des sciences de Turin, M. Amedee Peyron, a eu 1'extreme obligeance de collationner la gravure de Pasini avec 1'original, il a trouvee des fautes importantes, et il a pris la peine de les corriger d'apres le manuscrit; nous profiterons de son travail sur ce monument.') Santarem, Essai sur I'histoire de la geographic et de la cartographic 2: 130. Jomard, 'Sur la publication des monuments de la geographic/ 3-5 Santarem, Essai sur I'histoire de la geographic et de la cartographic, i: xxxviii. ('II peut etre bien rassure; je suis loin d'embrasser I'histoire entiere de la geographic. Telle n'a jamais etc mon idee. La lecture seule des prodigieux ouvrages du savant le plus encyclopedique de nos jours (de M. de Humboldt) m'en aurait detourne. Et d'ailleurs, quelles que soient les connaissances universelles d'un savant, la vie serait trop courte pour mener a bonne fin une pareille entreprise, de la maniere du moins que je comprends qu'elle devrait etre executee. M. Jomard ne doit craindre la concurrence de personne.') Santarem, Examen des assertions contenues dans un opuscule intitule: Sur la publication des monuments de la geographic, public au mois d'Aout 1847 (n.p., n.d.), 26. Ibid., 29. The antagonism directed at Champollion by Jomard is frequently described in Jean Lacouture, Champollion. Une Vie de Lumieres (Paris: Bernard Grasset, 1988), though not particularly well explained. It seems, as Lacouture describes it, little more than the otherwise inexplicable intolerance of the brilliance of a younger man. Jomard, Note sur la nouvelle direction a donner a la recherche des sources du Nil (Extrait d'une lettre addressee a la Commission centrale de la Societe de Geographic, Signed 12 April 1859).
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WILLIAM G. DEAN 5
Atlas Structures and Their Influence on Editorial Decisions: Two Recent Case Histories
Atlas Structures The technological and intellectual evolution of atlas making over the past four and one-half centuries has been traced by a number of historians of cartography.1 In general one aspect of this evolution has not been sufficiently explored: the concept of atlas structure. This concept is discussed here using some examples from the past and, in particular, two recent atlases, the Economic Atlas of Ontario and the Historical Atlas of Canada, noting the major impacts on editorial decisions that resulted.2 Elsewhere I have published reflections on the nature of atlas structures: here I wish to amplify and refine those reflections slightly.3 Quite simply, the term 'atlas structure' refers to those elements which give an atlas direction, purpose, and appearance. In other words it is the framework whereby atlas maps are selected, designed, drawn, and arranged. Embedded in this description is a threefold categorization which may be formally stated as synoptic focus, contents, and cartographic design. These are the three wholly integrated interactive processes through which atlases consciously or, perhaps sometimes unconsciously, are structured. Other papers in this volume have dealt with the early period in the origin and development of general atlases.4 Here, however, I wish to discuss a major scientific mapping step that had a significant impact on atlas development, the evolution of thematic maps.5 While having their origins in Arabic and Renaissance cartography, thematic maps were scientifically developed and improved throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to become the foundation of most atlas mapping of the twentieth century. Slow to be developed
138 / William G. Dean from efforts such as those of Edmund Halley during the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century, thematic mapping, which involved the plotting of information mainly from statistical or non-map sources, increasingly became used as an instrument for specialized research throughout the nineteenth century. Alexander Von Humboldt, Karl Ritter, and Heinrich Berghaus were leaders in the 'German school' of thematic map invention and use, especially in scientific physical geography. Humboldt's maps of world isotherms and phytogeography were among many of the types he produced. Other German natural and 'moral' scientists were also developing thematic maps. Gustaf Kamst, for example, in the 18305, compiled his ethnographic maps of Europe as part of studies of human physiological, intellectual, and moral characteristics purporting to demonstrate the 'superiority of Teutonic man/ as well as displaying his political and religious activities.6 Simultaneously, the 'British school' was evolving as can be seen most especially in the studies for the Irish Railway Commission published in 18347 This saw the introduction of analytic population dot maps, and various kinds of flow-line maps in astonishingly modern looking displays. Nevertheless, despite the fact that by midcentury thematic maps and their major data sources, national statistics, were evolving rapidly, they were only slowly adopted by the largely traditionalist and conservative map publishers. Accompanying the evolution of thematic maps were new concepts in cartographic presentation. Among the more important were the ideas of Adolf Stieler who formulated innovative structural principles and uniform production techniques for comprehensive, easily handled world atlases. Stieler's famous Hand-Atlas remains today the fundamental organizational pattern for virtually all world atlases, encompassing uniform projections and scales, a single cartographic style, greatest possible accuracy, clarity, and convenience.8 This atlas began with physical thematic maps of the world which led into political and regional topographic maps focusing down from continents to portions of continents or to individual nations. The first fully thematic atlas, however, was that of Heinrich Berghaus who between 1827 and 1848 fully executed Humboldt's ideas along with some of his own in his revolutionary Physikalischer Atlas.9 This atlas, requiring fifteen years to complete, contained scientifically derived thematic maps representing graphically the major inorganic and organic phenomena of the earth according to their geographical distribution and then, characteristic of nineteenth century science, by classificatory divisions. These maps included Humboldt's isotherm 'curves' for the world, the geographical
Atlas Structures and Their Influence on Editorial Decisions / 139 distribution of 'air currents/ a world survey of plant geography, the first realistic imagery of the mountain chains of Europe and Asia, an ethnographic map of Europe, and others. Berghaus's atlas was an important precursor of our contemporary unitopical atlases, such as, for example, world or regional atlases of climate, population, or disease, as well as a significant landmark publication in the history of cartography, both in the art of information processing and in expanding concepts about atlas contents. Another leading figure of these cartographically fruitful times was Alexander Keith Johnston of Edinburgh. His atlas making established him as 'the Queen's Cartographer in Scotland' mainly because of his ideas in furthering thematic and structural concepts. He had worked directly with Humboldt and Berghaus and others of the 'German school' and had published a revised and cartographically improved English edition of the Berghaus atlas in i848.10 Johnston developed these concepts and produced a series of brilliantly accomplished atlases including the noteworthy Royal Atlas and its many revisions from 1855 onwards." This had evolved from his earlier National Atlas of Historical, Commercial and Political Geography published in 1843 which, in addition to some of the Berghaus physical maps of the globe, contained maps of military history, voyages of discovery, transportation, plants used for food, and limits of cultivation, hydrology and meteorology, among numerous others.12 Not only were the ideas of Johnston important in themselves, they also profoundly influenced others. Among these was J.G. Bartholomew whose cartographic work and family name persisted through three quarters of the twentieth century. Perhaps Bartholomew's outstanding contribution was his Atlas of Scotland, 1895.13 Some scholars regard this as the first modern national atlas rather than the Atlas de Finlande, i899-14 The former was a unique combination of topographical, thematic, and regional maps placed in a structured framework. The latter, however, in the order and structure of its wholly thematic physical, economic, and social topics, provided the more direct pattern or synoptic focus on which subsequent national and regional atlases were based. By the end of the nineteenth century atlas makers had begun to realize that historical geography was not simply a matter of showing shifting political boundaries, or military conquests. Rather, the contents were expanded to include density and distribution of population, physiographical, ethnological, and economic factors. Notable among them is the Karl von Spruner historical atlas published by the famous and
140 / William G. Dean prolific map publisher Justus Perthes in Gotha.18 Especially as expanded in its editions after 1854, this atlas comprised a unique display of clear thematic maps depicting chronologically the rise and fall of the current European states through the most prominent periods of their history. A major influence on other map makers of his time and after, Spruner both interpreted history and promoted the idea of history as past geography. A striking example of cartographic design is found in the historical atlas authored by a cartographic unknown named Edward Quin and published in London in 183 o.19 This atlas shows in twenty-two maps at a uniform scale a general view of 'universal' history from 'The Creation' to AD 1828. In its first edition this is a startling example of cartographic imagination. Here enlightenment, represented on the maps as light shining on known areas of the world, rolls back the black clouds of ignorance farther and farther with each chronologically successive map until all known areas are revealed. Leaving aside obvious questions of geographical or historical accuracy, this atlas spectacularly illustrates the impact of creative cartography. Despite these early developments, until the 19205 and 19305 few scholars seem to have had the cartographic imagination effectively to develop such thematic maps. The widely known and ubiquitous world historical atlas of W.R. Shepherd has served through its nine editions and numerous revisions from 1911 on as the very model of modern historical atlases. Yet, apart from incidental thematic maps, for instance of American survey patterns, it is hardly more than a map record of shifting state boundaries through time. The Cambridge Modern History Atlas, first published in 1912, is similarly constructed, as are most others.15 Striking exceptions occur in some comparatively recent atlases such as C.O. Paullin's Atlas of the Historical Geography of the United States which goes far beyond mere boundary changes to include population, settlement, politics, manufacturing, and cultural topics.16 Historical atlases mapping socio-economic and cultural themes had been published prior to the 19203, but this approach did not become general until the present period of atlas proliferation which started in the late 1950S.17 The Structures of Two Recent Atlases Developing from the atlases described above and the evolution of atlas structures are the two recent atlases with which I was involved. One
Atlas Structures and Their Influence on Editorial Decisions / 141 is the Economic Atlas of Ontario, a regional atlas; the other, the Historical Atlas of Canada, is an historical national atlas. Following an outline of their individual structures below, is an elaboration of the major editorial decisions which arose during their compilation and cartography. The Economic Atlas of Ontario clearly is neither an early nor an historical atlas but for me it is a vital link in thinking about atlas structures. Indeed it was my starting point. This Atlas was begun in 1960 as a deliberate graduate student make-work project in economic geography. Its synoptic focus evolved over two years as an attempt to exploit the current geographical concepts in spatial analysis as exemplified in the work of Brian Berry in Chicago and Richard Chorley in Cambridge, England.20 We pursued their ideas of geographical studies based on matrix algebra as a means of more thoroughly exploring and explaining geographical relations. Not finding the array of a strictly algebraic matrix practicable for our purposes, however, we evolved instead a semantic matrix which we called the 'DAS Matrix/ The term DAS simply referred to 'Distribution/ 'Analysis/ 'Synthesis' which, eschewing Hegelian connotations, formed both the x and the y axes of the matrix (see Table 5.1). After starting with the distribution of the Ontario economy in a section entitled 'Aggregate Economy/ we arrayed the principle components of the economy as individual sections along the horizontal axis. These sections forming the analysis ranged from 'Population/ the obvious starting point of an economy, through the population's major economic activities such as 'Manufacturing/ 'Wholesale and Consumer Trade/ 'Recreation/ etc., in descending order of financial importance to the whole economy. The horizontal axis ended with the section on Synthesis subsumed under the title 'Administration/ Then down the y (vertical) axis the same DAS headings provided locations in the matrix, so to speak, into which distributions leading off each of the sections were placed. For the population section the distribution required a number of plates starting with a black and dark purple outline map of southern Ontario showing white dots plotted at 50 people per dot, a kind of negative or a view of the province at night with the population as nodes of light, somewhat reminiscent of plates from the Quin Historical Atlas. This now much-copied population map was followed by various analytical modifying elements considered to underpin the distributions, such as in the case of population, density, ethnicity, vital statistics, education, etc., then, finally, a synthesis relative to that particular section. Again with population, this was an index of 'Market Potential' (Plate 30), an expression of disposable income related to
142 / William G. Dean TABLE 5.1
Structural Matrix - Economic Atlas of Ontario Distribution Resource industries
Aggregate economy
Population
Manufacturing
Distribution
Economic landscape
Population distribution (6 plates)
Growth of manufacturing employment
Analysis
Economic comparisons (provinces)
Population density
Characteristics of manufacturing
Economic comparisons (counties & dists.)
Persistent population change
Characteristics in urban centres
Urban functional classification
Population change: urban places
Changes in characteristics
Energy supply in Ontario
Land use and urban development, Golden Horseshoe: Toronto, Hamilton and Ottawa
Population change: counties
Dominant major manufacturing group
Energy consumption, heating fuel and gasoline prices
Land use and urban development, major urban centres
Age structure: counties
Location quotient on manufacturing
Energy: costs of electricity and fuel
Age structure: urban centres
Refined index of manufacturing diversity
Ethnic origins and immigration
Index of plant dominance
Death and birth rates, migration
New plants, rural manufacturing and commuting patterns
Educational attainment
Location quotient on manufacturing employment by census definition of manufacturing groups (5 plates)
Higher education
University education Occupations Income and earnings Size and growth of urban centres Urban and rural populations Synthesis
Economic health
Market potential
Wage structure
Water sources, services, treatment and sewage by urban centres of 1000 population and over
Metallic mineral production, bedrock geology, and mining areas
Forest industry and forest regions
Atlas Structures and Their Influence on Editorial Decisions / 143
Analysis Wholesale and consumer trade Classification of retail and service centres
Retail strength
Wholesale centres and tributary areas
Synthesis Transportation and communications
Agriculture
Recreation
Gross farm income
Recreational landscape
Physiography
Summer outdoor recrea- Transportation chartion: boating, water tem- acteristics peratures
Agricultural land
Winter outdoor recreation: snow and skiing
Motor traffic (AADT)
Original township surveys
Dairy production and revenue
Commercial accommodation in Ontario
Motor coach service
Incorporated municipalities
Revenue from livestock and poultry
Marinas, canals, and airports
Air services
Special land designations
Revenue from cash crops
Summer road traffic
Passenger train services
Selected administrative regions
Total land in crops
Visitors to public parks
Freight transport
Planning status: incorporated centres
Farm characteristics: size, revenue, type
Indices of tourism
Marine facilities
Selected federal elections, 1867-1968 census dists. 1871-1911
Farm capitalization and expenditure
Recreation and community services
Marine trade: coastwise and international
Selected provincial elections, 1867-1945
Farm labour characteristics
Summer camps and cottages
Major commodity flows: Great Lakes
Provincial elections, 1955-1967
Value of farm product sales: Northern Ontario
Cottage ownership by urban area
Land transport network
Administration Evolution of Ontario boundaries 1774-1927 Evolution of administrative areas
Metro Toronto: Selected, fed. and prov. elections Radio and television stations
Changes in improved acreage
Television coverage
Urban employment centres and occupation characteristics
Agricultural regionalization and index of diversity
Recreation factor analysis
Transportation factor analysis
Voting variability in recent fed. and prov. elections
144 / William G. Dean place. In this way we assembled sets of spatial relations in a rational order. At least, we thought it more rational than simply following the traditional pattern of regional atlases on the Finnish model.21 Incidentally, the matrix is not explicit in the appearance of the atlas even though it forms the structure so that it neither intrudes on nor confuses the reader. Instead, it is implicit throughout the work and underlies the sequence of the Atlas sections and contents. In this Atlas, the synoptic focus provided by the DAS matrix also controls the contents. Thus the first map is a distribution of a distribution, in this case a summary of the economic geography of Ontario which we entitled 'Economic Landscape' (Plate i). The analysis of this distribution is a series of map plates which compare the economy of Ontario with the other provinces and with Canada as a whole along with county and district comparisons, a 'Functional Classification of Urban Centres' (Plate 4), and land use and urban development in all major urban centres. The synthesis of this aggregate economy was embodied in a factor analysis of the 'Economic Health' (Plate 7) of incorporated centres over 1000, and counties and districts. As another example of component content controlled by the matrix, the section on agriculture, which because of its literally ground based characteristics lent itself more readily to this approach more than any other section. The distribution is expressed as 'Gross Farm Income and Assessment' (Plate 57) which in an economic sense seemed the logical place to start. The synthesis appropriate to this analysis we regarded as an 'Agricultural Regionalization and Index of Agricultural Diversity' (Plate 69). Finally the synthesis of all of the economic components becomes in our approach administration and politics. Our hypothesis was that the political party in control of the province at any given time gave direction to economic development. Thus the concluding section was made up of election results from Confederation on, administrative divisions, etc., all of which in a broad sense provided a synthesis of economic development. Clearly, the DAS approach both related the Atlas more closely to current geographic thought and provided a means of overcoming uncontrolled speculation in geographical relations characteristic of regional atlases structured on the Finnish model. Certainly there is a degree of arbitrary determinism in the DAS method, but it encouraged the wholesale use of the current quantitative approaches as well as the use of a rational system of priority and relations in a complex economy. Because this approach relied heavily on innovative patterns of economic activity, the cartography was particularly important. It too
Atlas Structures and Their Influence on Editorial Decisions / 145 required an experimental edge, the graduate student researchers being encouraged to develop and exchange ideas about mapping statistical data directly with the cartographers. This was helped too by Dean and Matthews jointly creating a distinctive cartographic style. For this, the concept of clean, clear and simple mapping was amplified by unique associative colour selections and our attempt to develop free-floating data images where data represented in colour appear to rise above their geographical background (see Figure 5.1). Yet another most critical event with this atlas was justly placing the cartographer's name in the same size type on the title page alongside that of the editor. This was done over the vehement objections of the publisher accustomed to thinking of a cartographer in the same category as the illustrator of a book. The Historical Atlas of Canada was completely different from the Economic Atlas of Ontario in purpose, scope, and method. The purpose was to research, cartographically produce, and publish an original, innovative, and indispensable historical reference workboth for scholars and laymen. The scope centred on the spatial expression of the cultural, social, and economic patterns in Canada from the receding Pleistocene Ice Ages to the late 19505 with greater precision, detail, and analytical depth than attempted on maps before. Mapping the processes of historical change was considered paramount and was to be illustrated through case studies. The plates were to encompass wherever appropriate additional explanatory graphical devices, including graphs, drawings, pictures, or photographs. After lengthy discussions among the originating committee members, later to become the Executive Committee, and subsequently with members of the granting agency, an atlas comprising three volumes of no more than seventy plates each emerged as a practicable limit to our various resources within a seemingly reasonable period of time. Three volumes meant not only a division into three successive historical periods - in the end, following years of deliberation, From the Beginning to 1800, The Land Transformed, 1800-1891, and Addressing the Twentieth Century, 1891-1961 - but also through this, a necessary division of labour. The three volumes distributed the work load and enabled the sensible use of multidisciplinary expertise and specialist knowledge about particular historical periods or events. The detailed elaboration of these ambitious but attainable descriptive elements along with the justification and reasons for doing this in both English and French editions, in other words six atlases, was required by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRCC), our initial and
146 / William G. Dean
Figure 5.1 Plate 85, 'Transportation and Communications' from the Economic Atlas of
Atlas Structures and Their Influence on Editorial Decisions / 147
Ontario (1969) showing the simplified plate layout style for the atlas. By permission of University of Toronto Press.
148 / William G. Dean major sponsor throughout the life of the work. This elaboration also described in detail the synoptic focus overarching the three volumes.22 The details of contents was quite another matter and in this lies both the uniqueness and the scholarly strength of the Historical Atlas of Canada. The contents of each volume were fashioned over a minimum of three arduous years of interaction, discussion, and resolution of points of view among each of the three volume editors and their respective multidisciplinary editorial boards with some help from the ex-officio board members, the Coordinating Editors, and the Director. The originating committee had appointed editors for each of the three volumes; in turn the editors with the help of the committee selected up to eight scholars from appropriate academic fields to become the volume editorialboards. All board members contributed research and written essays in their own specialties as well as working as a team to initiate, review, and refine plates for their specific volume. The editors and their boards reached into the academic communities of thirty universities across the country, as well as in the United States and Europe, to find scholars engaged in research that might be published in their volumes. Likewise, they approached members of the private and government sectors whose current research might be used. Thus for each volume the research data were as current as possible to the time of publication. The result is not only the visual presentation of fresh theses on themes in Canadian historical geography, but also new and dynamic approaches to their interpretation and presentation. Unlike the plates in the Ontario atlas which were mainly single map images, the majority in the historical atlas contained a number of small maps, making for more attractive and engaging, but complex, plates. The various ideas expressed originally derived from the research of individual authors contacted by the editor of a volume or members of his board. Such ideas normally were expressed cartographically with only minor integrating changes, although in some instances it became necessary to combine a number of authors' ideas or research reports because of a lack of space or time to develop them fully. In the main, however, although having the same overall structural characteristics, each volume fully reflected the concepts of its editors, authors, and editorial boards. The editor and editorial board personally undertook the research load for roughly two thirds, one quarter and one third of the plates in Volumes i, n, and in, respectively (see Table 5.2). Accompanying the new research avenues and the fresh insights into the historical geography of Canada is the cartography which both visu-
Atlas Structures and Their Influence on Editorial Decisions / 149 TABLE 5.2
Per cent attributed authorship Historical Atlas of Canada (1987-1993) Volume Editors and editorial board members Single or joint authors Core Working Group Author(s) and CWG
i
ii
in
59 41
26 39 14 21
36 29 20 15
100
100
100
ually and intellectually binds the three volumes together. It is common knowledge in cartography and related fields, at least, that it requires a high degree of scientific integrity cartographically to depict statistical data successfully. Besides this, it should be remembered that cartography is an art as well as a science. Without graphic and aesthetic feeling and without extraordinary talent in drawing, no one can produce excellent results in cartography. This is exactly Geoffrey Matthews's forte, and he contributed some of his best work to the Historical Atlas of Canada. The distinctive Historical Atlas of Canada style will be perhaps, the subject of cartographic study for a long time to come. This style is an evolutionary step from the Ontario atlas, and jointly conceived during the preparation of the 1978 application for funding to SSHRCC. Added to the clear style characteristics carried over from the Economic Atlas of Ontario are the borderless map plates expressing a free-flowing continuity, so that the theme of one plate melds uninterruptedly with that of the next. Developed again by Dean and Matthews, this style, as we illustrated in our original submission for funding to SSHRCC suggests (see Figure 5.2) a graceful juxtaposition of maps, inventive graphs and often other illustrative devices grouped by topics within the overall theme, and only occasionally isolated by bounding frames. The map data are visually lifted above the base map by subtle and harmonious colours, while the base map lettering is screened back to contrast with the data lettering. Matthews' creative, artistic excellence in individual plate designs vividly places this interpretation of Canada's history in the forefront of Canadian publishing. The computerization of the cartography for fifty of the fifty-eight plates in Volume II carried out by Byron Moldofsky is another remarkable aspect of this atlas. Brought about in 1990 substantially to reduce costs and time in production, this revolutionary change became possible at precisely the right moment. Three earlier attempts to computerize the cartography failed because of excessive costs or
150
Figure 5.2 Plate 51, The Printed Word' from the Historical Atlas of Canada, Volume II: The Land Transformed, 1800-1891 (1993) showing the more complex plate layout
151
style adopted for that atlas and particularly prevalent in Volumes II and in By permission of the University of Toronto Press.
152 / William G. Dean inadequate technology or both. In April 1990, however, a series of fortuitous events led to the acquisition of two software packages, Arc Info 6.1, a Geographical Information Systems package with a highly refined mapping capability, and Interleaf 5, a high end desk-top publishing package designed specifically for workstations, and sufficiently powerful hardware to undertake and complete the volume.23 The story of this acquisition and the year of customization required is not relevant here. Rather it is the reduction in production time and the drastic changes in editorial activity that should be mentioned. The fluidity of the plate data systems combined with the capability of scanning, in contrast to the inflexibility of the scribing process on sheets of plastic,* permitted rapid and extensive editorial changes on maps and plates alike. Legends and texts could be altered, shifted, respaced, or moved about in moments instead of days or weeks. Time was saved and the same amount of work could be done by fewer than half the cartographers required for the manual scribing process. Besides the cost savings, the power of the system enabled us to replicate exactly the established atlas style and Matthews's individual plate designs. One cannot distinguish between the hand-made and the machine-made plates in Volume II. Nor can one distinguish differences in the cartography in Volume II from that in Volume III. As the Atlas finances ran down to their last pennies, this enormous technological advance saved the preparation and subsequent publication of Volume II from disaster.24 Impact of Structure on Editorial Decisions The following comments on the impact of structure on editorial decisions derive from personal experience with the Ontario and the historical atlases. In the latter instance, my comments are those of the atlas Director or overseer rather than someone directly involved in day-to-day editing. Observations by two of the volume editors (Cole Harris and Deryck Holdsworth), who were directly involved, appear later in this volume. Most readers will be aware that editorial decisions with respect to atlas making are clearly much more complex than those applied to making books. In atlases, besides the usual decisions having to do with texts of various kinds there are innumerable decisions regarding the maps and any other illustrative materials. Every bit of line work, every space, every * Scribing is in a sense the modern method for producing an engraved map plate. A fine instrument removes portions of an opaque covering from a plastic sheet so that it can be photographed to produce a stage of the printing plate.
Atlas Structures and Their Influence on Editorial Decisions / 153 symbol, every colour or shade, every piece of type, every typeface, every legend on a map, requires thousands of precise decisions exactly in keeping with the particular style of the map. Such decisions are guided and simplified by the devised structure of an atlas. For the Economic Atlas of Ontario the editorial decisions were principally data driven. Both the synoptic focus and the contents deriving directly from it depended on hard data from censuses or similar statistical sources. Most of these data were then manipulated statistically in various ways to produce ratios or proportions suitable for mapping and presentation as analytical or synthetic map plates created to fit into the DAS matrix. While this approach stimulated the use of a wide range of statistical techniques, it also exposed both the strengths and weaknesses of such data sources which had their impacts on editorial decisions. We found, for example, that census data are very uneven in accuracy, reliability, and applicability to mapping. Moreover, by the time our research was underway in 1963 and 1964, the Census of Canada for 1961 had not yet published most of the detailed data we needed. When it was published we found it left much to be desired in its usefulness. Maps are exceedingly demanding taskmasters, requiring accurate, precise, correctly located data, not soft information that can be sloughed off in a few puffy sentences. Thus the unexpected weaknesses in the 1961 Census data came as a complete surprise to us. One example was in labour force data. To underpin our studies of manufacturing in the province, we innocently assumed that such data were our best index and source, but when we finally received them we discovered that labour force statistics were derived from place of residence, rather than from place of work (the usual analysis point for such data!). In the end we created our own census and receiving an 80 per cent return, we used it. It turned out to be more complete data than that provided by either the federal or provincial governments. Another way around such problems was through the use of surrogates. We applied this technique in a number of cases, but one example will suffice here. Our student researchers had looked long and hard for some means of illustrating a phenomenon that everyone knew took place each summer. This was the flow of people from the cities of southern Ontario to cottage country around the lakes to the north. They could not find a reliable or suitable index to indicate this phenomenon, until one of the students suggested beer sales. This worked! In Ontario all beer sales are controlled through a brewery's collective called Brewers' Retail Incorporated which keeps detailed sales records for each of its outlets or stores. While they would not provide us with the sales from each store
154 / William G. Dean throughout the Province, they did group sales from two or three adjacent stores. Using these groupings we constructed 'beer sheds' and for each of these we plotted June, July, and August sales as a percentage deviation from the provincial average. The map that emerged was astonishing. Exactly where we expected, summer sales increased by as much as forty per cent, whereas in the major urban areas they declined by as much as ten per cent. We had found our index of summer movement of people from city to country. The editorial lesson learned from these experiences was not to rely on sources assumed to be correct. All data must be checked for reliability and accuracy. Where data are suspect or lacking, alternatives or substitutes must be sought. The so-called rational ordering of contents in the Ontario atlas under the overall matrix system caused a number of editorial problems. Resource industries, for instance, were difficult to fit into the matrixial mould without much lengthier study, therefore, a different set of decisions was required for these data, their sources, and their exploitation, along with the ingenuity needed to create new approaches. Plate 46 on 'Water Sources, Services, Treatment, and Sewage by urban centres of 1000 population and over, 1966' is a case in point. In so far as we were aware, no previous atlas had attempted to illustrate these directly related phenomena. On this plate we show in Ontario, among other related unpleasant facts, where the water supplies for numerous small places were drawn from rivers which were also the receptacles for untreated or barely treated sewage from the next place upstream. Likewise, topics such as recreation and wholesale and consumer trade could only be shown awkwardly in a distribution, fitted hesitatingly into a partial analysis, and their synthesis was frankly an uninterpretable complex derived from factor analyses. Current geographical methods might have made more sense than these early incursions into computer based statistical analysis and synthesis in economic geography. Such problems and choices dogged our editorial decisions to the end, but the synoptic focus in this case served well enough to win this Atlas three gold medals and numerous other prizes. Editing the text in this Atlas was a relatively simple matter. In the first place, text was kept to a minimum; a very brief Foreword by John Robarts, the Premier of Ontario, was followed by a Preface by the Editor outlining how the Atlas came into being and including a list of the Advisory Committee and Research Staff. A list of Contents specified in detail all the items on each plate in order to provide at least a minimal index. Next, an Introduction described the research nature of the Atlas,
Atlas Structures and Their Influence on Editorial Decisions / 155 its structure, sources, and cartography. On the front page of each plate both its sources and a brief statement of purpose was given. Sometimes, this also involved an expanded explanation of method as well. All such texts were initially written by the Atlas editor or by the plate author(s), proofed, and then translated into French. After translation and a subsequent editorial check in both languages, all were again proofed by the publisher's copy editor. In keeping with its times, the Atlas was bilingual, that is, both English and French appeared on the same pages, this being the first regional atlas in Canada to be published in both official languages. After a number of trials in persuading Francophone colleagues to translate, it became obvious, because of the glaring inconsistencies, that a single fulltime translator was needed. In the end, a graduate student in Geography from Laval University was hired for three years. It was a useful step especially since the simultaneous translation permitted cartographic typesetting without delay. The translation was beneficial in other ways as well, especially useful was the need to clarify and simplify our English and to reduce to a bare minimum the jargon so usually associated with statistical studies. The final edit for each plate was the chief cartographer's responsibility as was the check of the printed plates for colour and registration as they were run off the printing presses. Editing the Historical Atlas of Canada demanded considerably more intricate and challenging tasks than did the Ontario Atlas. Before the computerization of Volume II there were nine distinct stages of editorial procedures during which a minimum of seven persons participated in ten editorial functions producing six edited products which required a minimum of twelve editorial checks. After the computer acquisition the same stages were required but in general they moved much more swiftly through an interchange of floppy disks between editor, translator, copy editor, and cartographic production, and because map and text corrections were made quickly and directly on the workstations themselves. Prior to this, the stages although varied somewhat from volume to volume, followed the same pattern. Requests, guidelines, and instructions, occasionally base maps, flowed from the volume editor to individual authors who, with or without the help of research assistants, depending on their perceived needs, would research and produce a manuscript of their specific specialty. Such manuscripts were produced in nearly as many different forms as there were contributors. Sometimes they arrived as maps, too large or too small, usually rather crude, occasionally almost perfect. Quite frequently such manuscripts appeared
156 / William G. Dean only as a collection of data. These variations were delivered to the editor along with text to be transformed into legends and plate text. This delivery marked the start of the editorial procedures. The procedures consisted of a series of editorial interactions which sometimes quickly, often slowly, integrated the manuscripts into Atlas plates ready for scribing by the cartographers. Normally, the series began with the Core Working Group (CWG). This comprised four graduate students employed to form the interface between contributors and editors and the cartographers, particularly Geoffrey Matthews, the plate designer. Their prime responsibility was to relieve the cartographers of any research responsibility in compiling data for mapping, calculating data for mapping, or checking data of any kind, thus permitting them to proceed unimpeded with strictly cartographic tasks. The CWG had been envisioned in the original proposal to SSHRCC as a built-in task force specializing in research, transcribing data into mappable form, and team-editing, thereby performing the very necessary function of reducing cartographic production time and costs. They also were seen as a means of filling research lacunae, as mobile research organizers, and the principal means of smoothing the anticipated uneven flow of map manuscripts through volume editors to the cartographic designer. They also functioned as part of the cartographic editing and data checking procedure. Parenthetically, three members of each of the CWG for Volumes II and in proved themselves so valuable that they were appointed co-editor, associate, or assistant editors respectively, of the volumes they worked on. The profound influence of the CWGs may be traced in Table 5.2 showing attributed authorship compiled from the three tables of contents. The totals of 35 per cent (lines 3 and 4 in Table 5.2) attributed to the CWGs for Volumes II and in seriously undercounts their actual contributions since in some cases they also functioned as single or joint authors. The Table in part also illustrates the differing research approaches taken by the three principal editors.25 Once the editor and/or CWG had assembled the manuscript plate, they became involved in the design process by Matthews, in mediation between the authors' theses or data thrust and the design perspectives or limitations, usually of space. Ordinarily four or five plate designs were needed to produce a mock-up satisfactory to author, editor, CWG, and designer. Occasionally, especially in Volume I while undergoing our initial learning experience, many more designs, up to twelve, were needed. In this respect to a large degree Volumes I and ill may be said
Atlas Structures and Their Influence on Editorial Decisions / 157 to have been design-driven, while the computerized Volume II was datadriven. Meanwhile, a plate text nominally up to 500 words was produced by the author(s) and edited by the editor and / or CWG. Subsequent editing of this and essay texts, usually written by the editorial boards and edited by the volume editors, passed through the copy editor to the translator, and later, because place names were to be contemporary with the period treated on the plates, to a toponymic advisor for places with French names. The Atlas was extremely fortunate to be able to retain the meticulous personal interest and care of the same copy editor, translator, with various helpers, and toponymic advisor for all three volumes. The actual streaming of the paperwork varied somewhat from volume to volume, but was regulated throughout by the administrative assistant at first through a veritable snowstorm of paper, but later on disks. It should be remembered that most of the research and editing tasks took place before fax became ubiquitous and word processing became commonplace. One of the major costs for this Atlas arose out of the necessity of face to face contact to resolve countless decisions about details on maps among authors, editors, CWG, cartographers, translator, and frequently the copy editor. The cartographic compilation procedures, apart from the checking stages, comprised eight or more major steps depending on corrections.26 All plate text material, including place names, topographic features, and legends, required translation prior to final compilation because the French type to be placed on the same base as the English normally took up fourteen to twenty per cent more space and thus had to be laid down first. This made it necessary to complete the text editing for the plate before final scribing could begin. In the early stages of literally learning the job, this caused many frustrating delays and a need to find other work to keep the cartographers properly employed. There was of course considerably more flexibility in sequencing the mapping processes with the computers. Once scribing and typesetting (type for each plate was ordered on wax backed plastic sheets through a commercial vendor then cut out and stuck on a clear plastic overlay) were complete a cartographic edit was performed. This was followed by the seven or more steps in colour plate production ending with the printing plates all of which required a careful cartographic editorial check for each Atlas plate. All of these final edit and production stages demanded considerable time for both map plates and plate text, because only the editors and CWG for Volume III worked in direct contact with the cartographers and copy editor. For the other two volumes, maintaining communication
158 / William G. Dean among authors, editors, French edition editor, translator, toponymic advisor, and copy editor who resided in places such as Vancouver, Montreal, Quebec City, Hamilton, and Toronto, exacerbated all attempts to minimize time and thus costs. Contemporary technology, however, eventually became our saviour for Volume II and through fax, word processing, floppy disks, and computer mapping provided our happy ending (see Appendix). The summary above outlines the contrast between a relatively simple, ordered approach to atlas making in one location and the major intricacies involved in an enormously complex, multidisciplinary, teamshared, and far-flung enterprise. The Economic Atlas of Ontario was a deliberate experiment focused on the search for a more rational ordering of geographical phenomena within the context of a regional atlas, in this case, an atlas depicting economic geography. Because of its nature, the Historical Atlas of Canada encompassed a built-in escalation factor in the sense of a growing severity of demand for perfection on the part of each of the principal actors. A 'Herculean' effort as one newspaper put it, was required to encourage and maintain the direction, objectives, and the attempt to transcribe ordinariness in the project without losing its substantial scholarly quality. In its structure the historical atlas at one level is chronologically thematic with a case study approach to topics. At the second, 'contents' level each volume reflects a different approach. Volume I is regional in its internal organization, Volume II is topical, virtually in a nineteenth century sense, and Volume III is moulded in the image of contemporary social history. This Atlas is also something of an experiment both in the organization and management of a trans-Canadian multi-million dollar enterprise, and in its combined scholarly and cartographically innovative production. In the end, both the Ontario and historical atlases, clearly demonstrate how welldesigned, innovatively juxtaposed thematic map series can in fact explore, refine, and extend our understanding about virtually any spatial phenomena. APPENDIX An example of type editing procedure which was similar with some variations in detail for all three volumes:
Atlas Structures and Their Influence on Editorial Decisions / 159 Type Editing Procedure, HAC Volume II The following steps in the type editing and translation procedures were outlined at the meeting of May 2, 1991. These were then revised at the meeting of June 4, 1991, for clarification. Key: MAPTYPE = All type to appear on maps and graphs, including legends and short explanatory notes TEXT = Major and minor blocks of running text for a plate Both the above to be handled in batches of 5 plates or fewer B&W = black and white CARTO = Chief cartographer, Production cartographer, Administrative Assistant EDITOR = Volume editors PUM = Translation and French Edition editor UTP = Copy editor 1. EDITOR delivers TEXT to cartography and reviews it with CARTO if necessary to ensure final design reflects texts accurately. 2. CARTO delivers TEXT and one whiteprint of final design to UTP. At this time three whiteprints are sent to PUM for future reference, see no. 6. 3. UTP delivers copyedited TEXT to CARTO or directly to the EDITOR. 4. EDITOR reviews copyedited TEXT and approves any changes, after consultation with UTP if necessary; returns it to CARTO. 5. CARTO enters TEXT into computer system, making copyedit changes. TEXT proofread by CARTO. 6. CARTO sends TEXT to PUM over computer network, and hardcopy sent to UTP and EDITOR. 7. PUM translates TEXT, with consultation with EDITOR if necessary. 8. PUM sends translated TEXT to CARTO over network. An indefinite gap will occur here, as plates are produced in colour proof form. 9. EDITOR checks colour proof of plate, for data and presentation. Last chance for changes. Copy sent to authors at this stage for accuracy check only. 10. CARTO makes corrections as necessary for type editing. 11. CARTO delivers colour proof, and B&w print of MAPTYPE and TEXT only (no graphics) to UTP along with French TEXT. 12. UTP delivers copyedited B&w print to CARTO.
160 / William G. Dean 13. CARTO makes corrections, and delivers English colour proof and B&W prints of English and French TEXTS to PUM by courier, with changes in English TEXT highlighted. 14. PUM translates MAPTYPE and reviews translation of TEXT for changes and consistency with graphics. 15. PUM sends translated MAPTYPE and checked TEXT back to CARTO over network. 16. CARTO makes all corrections and produces English proof no. 2, French no. i. 17. Photocopies of colour proofs sent to UTP and PUM for final approval, quick response made by telephone wherever possible. 18. CARTO sends plates for final negatives and Cromalin proof.
NOTES The author expresses his gratitude to Joan Winearls for her generous guidance and help. 1 Examples include: Leo Bagrow, History of Cartography (Revised and enlarged by R.A. Skelton) (London: C.A. Watts, 1964); Norman J.W. Thrower, Maps and Man (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1972); R.V. Tooley and Charles Bricker, Landmarks of Mapmaking (Amsterdam: Elsevir-Sequoia, 1968); J.N. Wilford, The Map Makers (New York: Knopf, 1981). 2 W.G. Dean and G.J. Matthews, Economic Atlas of Ontario/Atlas economique de I'Ontario (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1969); W.G. Dean, Director, Historical Atlas of Canada, 3 volumes (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1987-93); Atlas historique du Canada, 3 volumes (Montreal: Les presses de 1'universite de Montreal, 1987-93); Vol. I: R.C. Harris, Editor, and G.J. Matthews, Designer/Cartographer, From the Beginning to 1800 (1987); Vol. II: R.L. Gentilcore, Editor, D. Measner and R.H. Walder, Assoc. Editors, G.J. Matthews, Designer, and B. Moldofsky, Production Coordinator (Computer Systems), The Land Transformed 1800-1891 (1993); Vol. ill: D. Kerr and D.W. Holdsworth, Editors, S. Laskin, Asst. Editor, and G.J. Matthews, Designer/Cartographer, Addressing the Twentieth Century, 1891-1961 (1990). 3 W.G. Dean, The Structure of Regional Atlases: An Essay on Communications/ The Canadian Cartographer, 7, i (June 1970); 48-60. 4 See also the extensive bibliography in James R. Akerman, 'On the Shoulders of a Titan: Viewing the World of the Past in Atlas Struc-
Atlas Structures and Their Influence on Editorial Decisions / 161
5 6 7
8
9 10
11 12
13
14
15
16
ture' (Ph.D. thesis, Pennsylvania State University, 1991; Ann Arbor: University Microfilms, 1992). Arthur H. Robinson, Early Thematic Mapping in the History of Cartography (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1982). G.R. Crone, Maps and Their Makers, 4th Edition Revised (London: Hutchinson, 1968), 157. Atlas to Accompany Second Report of the Railway Commissioners Ireland. Presented to both Houses of Parliament by Command of her Majesty (Dublin: HMSO, 1838). Adolf Stieler, Hand-Atlas uber die Thiele Der Erde (Gotha: Justus Perthes, 1830-34). The concept of this atlas and the first maps were produced in 1817. Subsequent editions were published until the 19503. Heinrich Berghaus, Physikalischer Atlas (Gotha: Justus Perthes, 1830-38). A.K. Johnston, The Physical Atlas, based on the Physikalischer Atlas of Professor Berghaus (London: W. and A.K. Johnston and Cowan and Co., 1848). A.K. Johnston, The Royal Atlas (Edinburgh: W. and A.K. Johnston, 1855). A.K. Johnston, The National Atlas of Historical, Commercial and Political Geography (Edinburgh: John Johnston and W. and A.K. Johnston, 1843). J.G. Bartholomew, Atlas of Scotland (Edinburgh: Published for the Royal Scottish Geographical Society by the Edinburgh Geographical Institute, 1895). The contents include: Bathy-orographic or relief maps and sections, river basins, land surface features, density of population (dot map), rainfall, temperature, geology, faunal areas, language and political maps, 'plans' of major urban centres and tables of statistics. Societe de Geographic de Finlande, Atlas de Finlande (Helsingfors: Societe anonyme F. Tilgmann, 1899). Its modern-looking contents include: physical maps (relief, geology and quaternary deposits), meteorology, phyto-geography, population (analyzed in detail), agriculture, industry, navigation, communications, prehistoric sites, historical boundaries, and some facsimiles of early maps. The Cambridge Modern History Atlas (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1912) and William R. Shepherd, Historical Atlas (New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1911). C.O. Paullin, Atlas of the Historical Geography of the United States, Ed. J.K. Wright (Washington, DC and New York: the Carnegie Institution and the American Geographical Society, 1932).
162 / William G. Dean 17 W.G. Dean, 'Sic enim est traditum/ Mapping History/L'histoire par les cartes, i (1980): 6-14. 18 Karl Von Spruner, Historisch-Geographischer Hand-Atlas zur Geschichte der Statten Enropas von Aufgang des Mittelalters bis auf die Neuste Zeit (Gotha: Justus Perthes, 1846). 19 Edward Quin, An Historical Atlas; In a Series of Maps of the World as Known at Different Periods (London; R.B. Seeley and W. Burnside, 1830). For a different view of this atlas see Walter Goffart's paper (pages 64, 81). 20 Peter Gould, 'Methodological Developments Since the Fifties' in Chris Board, Ed., Progress in Geography, (London: Edward Arnold, 1968), 13-49. 21 W.G. Dean, 'The Making of an Atlas,' Scholarly Publishing, 3 (January 1972), 141-62. 22 W.G. Dean, 'Foreword' in Harris, R.C., ed., Historical Atlas of Canada, Vol. I (1987). 23 Arclnfo 5, 6.1 [GIS software] (Toronto: ESRI (Canada), 1990-3); Interleaf 4, 5.3.1 [software] (Cambridge, Mass: Interleaf Inc., 1990-3). 24 W.G. Dean, 'Foreword' in R.L. Gentilcore, ed., Historical Atlas of Canada, Vol. II (1993). 25 Further problems in crediting authors for their work on the Historical Atlas of Canada have been reviewed recently by Anne Piternick in 'Author Problems in a Collaborative Research Project/ Scholarly Publishing, 25, i (October 1993), 21-37. 26 W.G. Dean and John Warkentin, Historical Atlas of Canada Project Handbook (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1980).
R. COLE HARRIS
6
Maps as a Morality Play: Volume i of the Historical Atlas of Canada
Volume I of the Historical Atlas of Canada1 was conceived in the early 19705, planned in the late 19705 and early 19805, and constructed in six or seven increasingly taxing years before publication in the fall of 1987. This now seems a long time ago. When the Atlas began 'facts' were still perilously close to being facts, not power-knowledge effects of particular discourses, and maps were scarcely texts for deconstruction. We had not thought very hard about power, least of all about our own implication in implicit systems of power embedded in language and convention. Nor had we thought much about the meaning of maps. Brian Harley's essays were not at hand. We knew something about early Canada, or thought we did, and we worked with one of the best design cartographers anywhere but, judged as textual critics, we were innocents gathered around the task of making an historical atlas of Canada. Now I have been prevailed upon to comment on the editorial process and urged to 'deconstruct' Volume I. The former is relatively easy - at least I can offer an editor's reflections. The latter is considerably more difficult, because literary criticism is not my field and because the deconstruction of texts would seem best left to those less implicated or, we are told, irrelevant than authors and editors. So I shall compromise, offering a few thoughts on editing, and a few more on Volume I of the Historical Atlas of Canada in relation to national visions of Canada. Editing I was not an experienced editor when I took on Volume I, but this did not particularly bother me. I thought that editing was essentially a
164 / R. Cole Harris matter of thinking clearly and writing clearly, of knowing what one wanted to say and who one's audience was, and of connecting the two with a minimum of fuss. I had some sense of the early Canada I wished to depict, and knew at least some of the outstanding scholars. It seemed a matter of assembling the right team and getting on with the task. It also seemed important to take maps on their own terms, respecting their ability to emphasize spatial relations and depict complex distributions at various scales, and not ask them to deal with a host of less centrally spatial questions for which they are a cumbersome, relatively inarticulate, and expensive medium. I remain convinced that these are the essentials of atlas editing. But I had not reckoned on the institutional context of an atlas, the particular demands of a medium that relies on both maps and words, and the amount of work involved. Whatever else it was, this atlas was a large, visible, public project. The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRCC) had been generous and there was a product to deliver. I had thought that the research for Volume I could be completed in three years, and the application promised as much. This estimate was simply wrong. We were working as hard and as well as we could; a major reference atlas based on sound research - which is what we had described - could not be delivered in that time. But we had committed ourselves, and SSHRCC had every reason to request a completed manuscript after three years. We did not have one, and SSHRCC was understanding, but from that time on the volume lived, in a sense, on borrowed, financially uncertain time. I knew that a major work was emerging, but for a long time no one else had reason to be confident. Perhaps the volume would have to be scaled down; perhaps, after the darkest rumours, the project would be abandoned. The lesson, presumably, is not to underestimate the work in a major atlas, and yet, had I not been optimistic, I would never have agreed to edit this volume, while SSHRCC, had it known what lay ahead, probably would never have funded us. A measure of naivete may be necessary to launch historical atlases. This atlas, unlike most books, assembled authors who were unfamiliar with the medium. As a rule, geographers were more sensitive than others to the opportunities inherent in maps, but almost no one had any experience with the combination of thematic maps and succinct, related texts that would comprise a plate in this atlas. With some notable exceptions, the maps and texts authors submitted were not
Maps as a Morality Play / 165 acceptable as received. Texts were usually too wordy and insufficiently connected to the maps. Maps were usually thin, overloaded, or dull. Initially, none of us quite knew what was the appropriate density of information; I as editor required some considerable exposure to Geoff Matthews and the other cartographers in Toronto to recognize and respect the strengths and limitations of the medium we were using. Moreover, we had to produce a coherent, balanced volume. The strategies I used to cope with such problems were these: a huge correspondence, a great deal of travel, and editing that most authors found annoying and excessive. I had to keep in close touch with authors which sometimes could be done entirely by mail, but often could not. Materials usually had to be talked over. Out of these visits and conversations, and out of various rummagings through authors' collections of maps and documents, emerged many of the most unusual and striking plates in the volume. As I knew more about the cartographic capacity in Toronto and Geoff Matthews's design skills, this process became easier. And as the written texts arrived, in all their different styles and densities, I found that the most expeditious response was to rewrite them substantially. Only a few crafted texts escaped this treatment. The result, usually, was an explosion, especially when, as was often the case, my rewriting had altered an author's meaning. Such alterations were corrected, of course, and I found that, as long as the author and I could stand it, this acrimonious process yielded texts that satisfied both of us remarkably quickly. With deadlines pressing and a measure of stylistic unity required, there hardly seemed an alternative. It was only one of the ways in which editing became more authoritarian. There was also a relationship with a cartographer to be worked out. I began with the assumption that, under Geoff Matthews's overall direction, cartographic input would come from across the country. The Atlas would be as much an opportunity for cartographers as for scholars, or so it seemed. But from the outset William Dean, the project's director, cautioned that such cartographic outreach was not feasible, and eventually I knew he was right. Cartographers are attached to their own creations, and design maps out of different aesthetic backgrounds that are not necessarily compatible. Geoff Matthews imposed his own cartographic style on the volume, which meant that designed submissions were redesigned, and the original cartographers were offended. The simpler procedure was to turn over clear, but essentially undesigned material to Matthews, together with my or the
166 / R. Cole Harris authors' thoughts about meaning, sequence, and emphasis, and leave him to work his magic. Until I understood this, the cartographic arrangements for Volume I were strained; thereafter they were exceedingly pleasant. I suspect this is a rule-of-thumb for most atlases: find, then rely on, one outstanding design cartographer. Even so a relationship between editor and cartographer remains to be negotiated because neither works independently of the other. In principle an editor is responsible for content, a cartographer for design, but content affects design and vice versa. Who, for example, decides on colour when the choice of colour can transform both design and meaning? I doubt there is a useful way to define either of these overlapping spheres of responsibility. The editor has rather more to do with content, the cartographer with design; thereafter the relationship depends on trust. I eventually knew that I was working with a superb design cartographer who would change his designs if I felt they misconstrued meanings. I made many design suggestions - but never more than that - a few of which were adopted. After some initial misgivings, I think Matthews usually appreciated the quality of the material he was being given. When he did not, it went into a drawer and nothing happened. I had more work to do. I relied on his insistence that the material be unostentatious and completely clear. Translation posed certain problems but, if texts are clear and translators able, shades of meaning in academic writing usually can be preserved in translation. Moreover, the better the translation, the more equivalent the length of French and English texts, an important consideration in atlas making. Our wonderful translator from English to French, Marcel Pare, was backed up by others familiar with specialized vocabularies, particularly Louise Dechene. So situated, English to French translation was safe. I translated the relatively few texts submitted in French. We struggled more with place names, fraught as they are with cultural and geopolitical baggage. Simple rules of thumb applied flexibly - that we would use the principal name and language of the day and modernize spellings - and the fastidious work of Maurice Saint-Yves, helped enormously. Effective atlas editing entails an effective team. Perhaps I should have more to say about editing, but this is my basic list. I remain of the view that, however arduous and exacting, editing depends on a competent cast and a few simple principles only somewhat complicated in the case of a major historical atlas, by financial pressures and the opportunity to create an unusual, multiauthored text composed equally of maps and words.
Maps as a Morality Play / 167 Volume I and National Visions Innocent about texts as we may have been, we were not totally naive. We knew, for example, that maps are radical and tendentious abstractions that emphasize and eliminate. Against the complexity of any small part of the earth, the map is an egregious simplification, every line a distortion. Any map, therefore, reflects choices about what to include, what to omit, and an atlas only compounds the problem of choice. We knew this, although we did feel that existing scholarship on early Canada had greatly reduced the problem of choice for Volume i compared to the two that would follow. We knew too that choice is dictated by contemporary interests, and is not imposed by the past. An atlas, like any other communication, reflects its authors and their time and place, and begins to be dated as soon as it is produced, partly because communications change the information field out of which they emerged. We expected that some maps would soon be superseded by additional information, that others would fade because, eventually, they did not seem very interesting, and that topics we had not considered would emerge as serious omissions. Overall, it seemed clear that the Atlas would survive as a picture of Canada drawn in the late 19705 and early 19803. We were determined that, on the topics it addressed, it stand as a balanced, up-todate benchmark of scholarly understandings at that time. To be sure, this was an historical atlas of Canada, well funded by SSHRCC and intended for public as well as academic use. It was not independent, therefore, of Canadian nationalism. No one in SSHRCC ever told us how to interpret the country - SSHRCC is much too civilized for that - but we would probably not have obtained a special grant had our views about Canada departed radically from prevailing political orthodoxies. These were Trudeau years preoccupied with the national energy policy, bilingualism and biculturalism, the Charter of Rights, and the question of Quebec. Above all, the real possibility that Quebec might separate raised deep Canadian anxieties about the nature and viability of an east-west state in the face of strong continental pressures. The editorial board never discussed these questions; if we had our opinions would have been diverse and fragmenting. From my point of view it was enough that the Board was singularly talented and regionally representative. Nor did we ever discuss the general interpretation of Canada that the Atlas should offer - but I was responsible for assembling it, and at least some of my assumptions were as clear to me then as now: that (following Harold Innis) the European
168 / R. Cole Harris experiences in the territories that became Canada and the United States were very different, that some generic ingredients of the Canadian composition were essentially geographic (and hence could be well represented cartographically), that Canada had grown primarily out of a French position in North America, that the Atlantic region received too little attention in general interpretations of early Canada, and that the same was true of native peoples (a view shared by every member of the Board). We also worked within guidelines that were intended to shape all three volumes. This was to be an economic and social rather than a more narrowly political atlas. To a considerable extent, therefore, it was to deal with ordinary lives, which seemed best represented cartographically by the broad circuits of movement and local patterns of settlement within which they were situated. It would also be necessary to say something about the changing geopolitical contexts of such lives, and to deal with the explorations and wars on which European positions in North America rested. We knew most of this at the start. Volume I eventually emerged out of scholarly co-operation and labour across the country, enormous individual contributions from members of the editorial board, the talents of a design cartographer and a still-manual cartographic laboratory, a fastidious translator, a supportive university press, and the editorial process described above. Essentially, the construction was gothic. The master plan kept changing and even late in the process plates were added or discarded. John Ruskin would have approved we did not follow a straight line. Eventually there was an atlas, done as well and as quickly as we could. Some of us were almost too exhausted to be pleased. But what really had we done? What creation had we made out of the severely simplifying, abstracting, power-laden medium that is the map; the Canada of a decade ago; and the then current state of scholarship? Now, our seeing somewhat adjusted by French intellectual optometrists, how does the Atlas look? Everyone, of course, will read it somewhat differently. For me, the Atlas was bound up with the question of Canada, so I will comment on how, in its day, it constructed the background of Canada. Brian Harley and many others would say that such constructions are power-laden, and they are probably right; perhaps, then, my ruminations are really about a particular phase of the Canadian imperial imagination. We did some things that, apparently, we should not have done. We constructed a stage, put actors on it, and let the end of the play -
Maps as a Morality Play / 169 Canada - shape their lines. Perhaps we were not as flagrant as C.M.H. Clark, who began his history of Australia with Governor Phillips landing in Botany Bay.2 Such was the beginning, Australia was the stage, and the Australian state was the eventual result. A few days in Botany Bay, taken out of context, become the beginning of a national project, a type of writing that Paul Carter, in The Road to Botany Bay3 considers the 'selective blindness' of an imperial cultural discourse that seeks to legitimate rather than understand. Volume I of the Atlas, to be sure, begins with ice sheets in the late Wisconsinan glaciation, 20,000-12,000 years ago, but this ice, however prettied by violet shading, is not as innocuous as it seems. The southern margin of continuous glaciation is not far from the Canadian-American border. Moreover, a long tradition of Canadian nationalism has focused on Canadian northernness - and the northern credentials of ice are excellent. That ice, in short, is an early version of the Canadian stage, a little slippery perhaps, somewhat inhospitable and unforgiving, almost detached along the eastern flank of the Cordillera, and bypassing most of an un-glaciated and un-Canadian Alaska. The first actors on this stage were the Fluted Point People, most of whom, as the ice retreated, moved offstage south. We show Fluted Point sites in southern Ontario but not in upstate New York, in southwestern Manitoba but not in northwestern Minnesota. This makes no sense if one is interested in Fluted Point People, but every sense if one is interested in Canada. The Fluted Point People are being turned into early Canadians - a presumption that, fortunately, we did not have to explain to them. Then the volume describes a succession of regional cultures until, by Plate 9, those that Europeans would encounter are well in place. Throughout this treatment a later political border approximately serves as a southern boundary. These plates do show the extraordinary rootedness of these early 'Canadian' cultures, most of them evolving in situ from Fluted Point origins, a continuity that suggests the intimacy of slowly worked out accommodations of people, technology, and environment. The section is titled 'prehistory/ a term we would not use today, although we did include one group of Europeans: the Norse. Volume I then considers the Atlantic region (Plates 19-32). After a plate on sixteenth century exploration and cartography it turns to the environment, showing the banks, ice-bound coasts, and bleak land largely useless for agriculture. The glacial ice is gone, but a scraped, rock-and-winter-bound land remains - an only somewhat revised regional version of the Canadian stage. To the north it gets worse, to the
170 / R. Cole Harris south a good deal better, but this is the point. The United States would develop out of a different relationship with an inherently more generous, more agricultural land. The Atlantic face of Canada was composed of rock and spruce with more rock and spruce behind and only a few patches in the south where farming was possible. For a long time only fishermen came to such a place. The next plate shows where they came - directly to the banks to fish and return, or to fishing harbours where the ship was beached and men fished from small boats near the shore. The plate shows the shore installations and describes the processing of cod. Here the analysis is straight Innis: a trans-Atlantic outreach to a North American resource, a work camp in the wilderness, a slightly processed raw material shipped to a European market. A staple trade, the first protracted European involvement with Canada. The fishery would dominate much of Atlantic Canada for four hundred years, and eventually other staple trades would dominate elsewhere. Capital and labour bounded by wilderness that could not be turned into countryside. Lives dominated by the terms of work in resource camps. Work often seasonal, adjusted to winter and the scarcity of women. Here, the Atlas is claiming, is a primary, longenduring type of Canadian settlement that grew out of the expanding world economy, improved transportation, and the unsuitability of most of Canada for agriculture; a characteristic framework, if you will, within which immigrants and many of their descendants experienced a new land. More plates treat the cod fishery and then, suddenly, something quite different: Louisbourg (Plate 24). At Louisbourg the French crown built a fortified town, defended it with thick walls in the Vauban style, and posted a considerable garrison. There was soon a healthy trade with France, New England, and the West Indies, and so there were merchants, some very prosperous, as well as the tradespeople of a port. There were fisheries around Louisbourg harbour, but Louisbourg was a town, a creation of the French state and of French merchant capital. Its principal buildings reproduced the French architecture of the day and its elaborate social hierarchy and occupational diversity resembled French garrison towns of similar size. A plate on the town of St John's (Plate 27) shows the same elements in different proportions: the state more weakly represented, merchants overwhelmingly dominant. Louisbourg's geometry was absent. Halifax, a fortified, garrison town that became a centre of trade, was the closer English counterpart of Louisbourg. But none of these towns resembled the work camps of staple trades. They housed a great variety of occupa-
Maps as a Morality Play / 171 tions, and complex, highly stratified societies. Often walled and always garrisoned, they represented and concentrated the power of the state. There had been two hundred years of European activity in the Northwestern Atlantic before any of these towns was securely established; as they emerged they reproduced one of the two basic elements of the human geography of northwestern Europe. The other was countryside. The first countryside in Atlantic Canada was along the Riviere au Dauphin near Port Royal on the southeastern coast of the Bay of Fundy. The French attempted to build a town at Port Royal, but it never developed. Yet there were tidal marshes that could be drained, there were a few settlers, and there were soon marshland farms. Peasants made this countryside and it supported their families. Their mixed farms supplied as many of their wants as possible. The basic social unit in the countryside was the nuclear family, the population was demographically balanced and, compared to the towns, was remarkably unstratified. The different cultural backgrounds of immigrants quickly melded: an Acadian peasant culture spread around the Bay of Fundy, a distinctive regional variant of French peasant ways and, more generally, another basic type of early Canadian settlement. These plates identify some of the basic furniture on the Canadian stage. The final plates in this section begin to comment on its arrangement. The Acadians were deported in 1755, casualties of the Anglo-French struggle for a continent, but other peoples arrived, most from the English-speaking settlements to the south and from the British Isles. By the end of the eighteenth century, much of Prince Edward Island, most of the land surrounding the principal bays within the Bay of Fundy, much of the St John valley, and other patches here and there, had been converted to pioneer countryside. But rock, acid soils, and long winters still prevailed. Agriculture was possible only in patches, most of which, by the end of the eighteenth century, were found and being settled. There were also rock-bound fishing ports along the Atlantic coast of Nova Scotia, around much of Newfoundland, and at various places in Gaspe and Labrador. There were several port towns, on which in various ways outports and countrysides depended, but no one town dominated the economy or administration of the region. The arrangement of farms, fishing ports, and towns, was discontinuous and fragmented. Economies were little connected. Different ethnic groups, protected by isolation in different settlements, had little enough to do with each other.
172 / R. Cole Harris At this point the volume shifts westward to the St Lawrence, the Great Lakes, and the larger continental interior (Plates 33-44). In so doing it deals with the fur trade, the military struggle between France and Britain for the continent, and the mix of peoples caught up with both. The fur trade grew out of the cod fishery in the late sixteenth century and expanded rapidly inland, drawn west by resource depletion and rivers navigable by canoe. By the 17403 the Montrealbased fur trade was established on the Saskatchewan river, and for years had operated west and south of the Great Lakes. To the north were the English on Hudson Bay, to the south the French colony of Louisiana, and to the southeast the English colonies along the Atlantic seaboard, from which traders pushed across the Appalachians to compete with the French for the Ohio Valley and beyond. In this vast interior there were, besides white traders and missionaries, an extraordinary mix of native peoples, many of them refugees from the epidemics and wars that had depopulated southern Ontario, Michigan and most of the Ohio valley before 1660. As many Atlas plates show, the plot is intricate, and the stage almost continental. At the end of the seventeenth century, France virtually controlled Hudson Bay, the Mississippi, and the St Lawrence, three of the four principal Atlantic entries to the continent. But the on-the-ground reality was that the continental interior was still native space with, here and there, a few French traders and missionaries. North of Louisiana, French agricultural settlement was late and minimal; scarcely 3,000 French-speaking people lived in the vast continental interior west of the St Lawrence in 1755. As it turned out, this frail stage could not be held. During the Seven Years War, France lost not only a continental empire, which in many ways had been no more than a cartographic illusion, but also a much more established position along the lower St Lawrence. At this point the atlas turns to the St Lawrence settlements (Plates 45-56). They grew out of a considerable immigration from France, almost 10,000 people; their descendants, eventually occupying all the arable river front between the mouth of the Ottawa River and the Gaspe, were, by 1760, a New World population of some 75,000. This was a more administered colony than Acadia had ever been, and it approximately reproduced French towns and countrysides and many of the institutions associated with them. Quebec and Montreal, like Louisbourg, were foci of French administration, commerce, and defence. They reproduced the northern French architecture of their day, and they housed complex, occupationally diverse, and finely
Maps as a Morality Play / 173 stratified societies. Montreal depended on the interior trade; Quebec was a port and the seat of an administration organized along the lines of a French province. Well fortified outliers of French power, the towns were the military foci of France in America. Most people, however, lived in the countryside, a far more original creation. There the seigneurial system and the coutume de Paris imposed frameworks of landholding and law, and a bishop in Quebec established parishes and resident priests. The state drilled men for the militia, but in Canada, as in France at the time, the state had neither means nor reason to control most rural ways. To a considerable extent, therefore, rural Canada, like Acadia, was the creation of a peasantry operating within the constraints of pioneering in a northern forest, a weak market, limited off-the-farm employment, and a mix of people from different parts of France. Canadian agriculture, like Acadian, was largely unspecialized, its primary purpose to support farm families rather than to address the market. Rural society was not egalitarian, but nor, for the most part, was it markedly stratified. Land provided the means, generation after generation, to establish farm families, and as the generations passed, local experience accumulated, some French memories faded, and another distinctive regional peasant culture, French in most of its details but not in composition, came into being. The common farmhouse is a measure of the change (Plates 55-6, see Figure 6.1). It was a timber-frame building infilled with squared, horizontal logs, a type of construction that had been common in Europe when the forest was at hand, that had virtually disappeared from France in the seventeenth century, and that reappeared along the lower St Lawrence when a French peasantry was reinserted in the forest. Out of such selections from European memories, coupled with the recontextualization of life along the St Lawrence, emerged a vital regional peasant culture. In the background were the geographical realities that dominated life in the Atlantic region. The Canadian Shield, rocky, elevated, acidsoiled, and uninviting, lay just to the north of the river, the Appalachians lay a little farther away to the south. Winter lingered; a short growing season barely admitted spring wheat. The colony was a patch of arable land almost 1,500 km from Louisbourg and the open North Atlantic. Tied to France, it was detached from Acadia, Louisbourg, and the French fisheries in Newfoundland and Labrador with none of which had it much to trade. The last main section of Volume I deals with natives and fur traders in lands that now largely comprise Western Canada (Plates 57-67).
174 / R- Cole Harris
Figure 6.1 Plate 55 from the Historical Atlas of Canada Volume i (1987) showing the various house types that developed in Quebec before 1800 - an example of
Maps as a Morality rlay / 175
the very creative cartographic design work done for the atlas. By permission of the University of Toronto Press.
176 / R. Cole Harris Trade routes, the extraordinary proliferation of trading posts, the layout of such posts, the provenance of their employees, and native responses to all these developments are principal subjects. Agriculture scarcely figures. On the West Coast, a region of great linguistic diversity, a separate maritime fur trade began. In the background are two observations about the Canadian stage. The fur trade largely followed the Canadian Shield and, on the plains, the parkland belt into the northwest, and hardly penetrated the grassland; as a result when a political boundary was drawn from the Lake of the Woods to the Rockies in 1818 it marked, as much as any one parallel of latitude reasonably could, the effective southern limit of the western Canadian fur trade. And three years later the Northwest Company (based in Montreal) and the Hudson's Bay Company (based in London) merged. Thereafter furs flowed out through the Bay and the western connection with Canada was broken. Fort George, the Pacific entrepot at the mouth of the Columbia River, was already being supplied by sea. The fur trade had given France, then Britain, geopolitical positions in the northwestern quarter of North America, but its legacy was not functionally integrated, transcontinental space. Two maps end the volume, one showing settlements in eastern Canada in 1800, the other the distribution of native peoples around 1820 (Plates 68-9). Each, in its way, is a concluding statement. In 1800, much of the present international border was in place. The Ohio Valley, the Michigan peninsula, the old pays d'lllinois along the Mississippi were part of the United States and with them a vast, ongoing agricultural potential. British North America was far more bounded: patches of settlement isolated by rock and distance, abrupt discontinuities, a stretched position along the northern continental margin of agriculture. This had been the heart of New France; in 1800 it was British North America - the paradox at the centre of Canada. The principal settled region in 1800 was the lower St Lawrence, where most people were French speakers. Up-river settlements were Englishspeaking: a band along the river, patches at intervals around the lakes beyond. More patches in the Atlantic region. Around Newfoundland and much of Nova Scotia settlements had no landward extent. Within these patches, life was local. Trade connected outport and town, and the towns to the North Atlantic, but as during the French regime, there was little trade between the different, scattered British North American colonies. Boundedness, discontinuity, variety: this is what the map of 1800 is about. British North America was a series of pinched discontinuities in a vast space.
Maps as a Morality Play / 177 And then there is the situation of the native peoples. In much reduced numbers, they survived in the east, but old ways of life were gone and many on reserves were destitute and starving. Bands in the Shield retained more of hunting and gathering ways, although adjusted long since to the fur trade. In many areas big game animals had become scarce, in which case natives depended on traders for food and hides. In the west native populations were larger, and ways of life less disturbed, although almost everywhere, forty years before, smallpox had taken its horrendous toll. These societies, too, were in flux. Overall, the map gives a vicarious last word to those who bore the brunt of the European coming, pointing out that, through the devastation, natives had survived almost everywhere. A small fraction of the population in the East, the majority everywhere else, they were, the atlas claims, part of the curious, inarticulate, but, by 1800, centuries-old and quite-recognizable pattern of early Canada forged out of the European encounter with the lands at or beyond the continental margin of agriculture. So much for this potted reading of Volume I of the Historical Atlas of Canada. The stage has been identified, some of the props put in place, some of the actors assembled and some acts of the play seem to have taken place. It is hard to be sure. But maps, we now know, are about power, and a historical national atlas funded by a government agency would seem to be about state power. A play written in the form of a national historical atlas could be expected to be imperial and triumphal, but this one almost seems to belong to the theatre of the absurd. Actually, I think it is neither: Volume I is a morality play. Morality plays were not so much about God as about conduct, reminders of Christian values and ways. And so the Atlas by describing the geographical stage on which modern Canada would emerge a Canadian 'primal' George Grant might have said - the Atlas not only describes a pattern of Canadian settlement but also implies a set of Canadian values and ways. In the strongest possible terms it points out to English Canada that the country emerged out of a French position in North America, that English Canada would not exist were it not for the French presence in North America. That French presence, the Atlas says, is a given without which the country is unimaginable. But even in these early years, there were other pockets of settlement where other European people spoke other languages and lived within different cultures. People in different pockets rarely mixed, and often hardly knew of each other, but they were there, showing no signs of melting down,
178 / R. Cole Harris part of the Canadian equation. The country, the Atlas holds, cannot be thought apart from such differences. Moreover, native peoples survived in reduced numbers and in however changed circumstances, a presence almost everywhere. They, too, are part of the pervasive otherness of this country. In the light of such variety, embedded in the very rock and bone of the place, this implies the conclusion that there can hardly be a dogmatic conception of Canada. Visions that rally some infuriate others; a sense of Canada entails tolerance and the appreciation of difference, not because such is God's command, but because there is no other way of living together. This morality play is not very theological. Constrained by variety, Canadian nationalism cannot be strident. It has to do with an appreciation of cultural diversity and, along the continental margin of agriculture, of the unsettled land that remains at our doorsteps. It has to do with tolerance, compromise, and pragmatism; its ways are gentle, self-effacing, and tentative. In a world full of bellicose emotion, this would seem to be a nationalism worth some quiet satisfaction. But texts are embedded in contexts, and, in retrospect, this text easily seems, at best, a lovely dream from the early 19805. At worst it is preachy and dull. There isn't, in fact, much interest in morality plays. Differences may erect walls rather than appreciation and understanding. The election of 1993 shows how easily the pattern of Canada may lead to localism. And, however gentle, even dreams of Canada retain an imperial edge, constraining the opportunity of some to be as different as they would wish. And so, many have repositioned their dreams to embrace the world on the one hand and the local community on the other, leaving no space for an awkward, intermediate Canada. Perhaps this is the emerging world order, in which case the Atlas is a late example of a fading Canadian imagination. Perhaps, but people inhabit the varied spaces of this land, and will continue to live with each other. If they are all to remain within Canada, then it is hard to see how to avoid the terms of the atlas morality play. There lies a Canadian option but, after two protracted and agonizing constitutional failures, it is hardly being heard and tribalism grows by default. This is the situation in which we find ourselves, and as I look back on Volume I of the Historical Atlas of Canada, both to the transcontinental cooperation that made it and the morality play that is implied by it, I see some of the elements of a vision of a generous, accommodating Canada that, as nationalisms go, could be among the best this world has to offer, and that may be slipping away. But who knows?
Maps as a Morality Play / 179 Canada is not a fact, but an evolving political construction that Canadian imaginations interact with in a great variety of ways. The Atlas was one way, and neither its analysis of early Canada nor its implied morality play are irrelevant today. Yet countries reinvent themselves, and we may be in a period of reinvention out of which, eventually, a quite different historical atlas of early Canada will be constructed, one no less appealing to those who feel that Canada, in all its cumbersome, lovely variety, is a precious opportunity. NOTES 1 R.C. Harris, Editor and G.J. Matthews, Designer/Cartographer, Historical Atlas of Canada, Vol. I: From the Beginning to 1800 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1987) and Atlas historique du Canada, Vol. I: Des origines a 1800 (Montreal: Les Presses de 1'universite de Montreal, 1987). 2 C.M.H. Clark, A History of Australia (London: Melbourne University Press, 1962). 3 Paul Carter, The Road to Botany Bay (London: Faber, 1987).
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DERYCK W. HOLDSWORTH 7
The Politics of Editing a National Historical Atlas: A Commentary
This essay begins as a commentary on two papers, one that is Bill Dean's reflections on atlas structure from his perspective as Editor of the Economic Atlas of Ontario and as Director of the three-volume Historical Atlas of Canada project, and the other by Cole Harris on some of the subtexts of the making of Volume i of the Historical Atlas of Canada. As a participant in the latter endeavour, and as a reader of the influential Ontario Atlas, these comments cannot be neutral nor objective. Indeed, as pre-conference scribbled drafts gave way to verbal presentation and elaboration at the conference before being formalized in the paragraphs that follow, it became clear that my most useful contribution to this collection of papers on editing early and historical atlases would be explicitly to interrogate my own subjective viewpoint on editorship. As such, it offers a third axis of reflection on modern thematic atlases, highlighting seven distinct aspects of the politics of editing, to fit in behind Dean's emphasis on structure and Harris's development of essences. I proceed with the belief that personalities and politics are somewhat relevant to the historiography of cartography.1 Bill Dean's essay is valuable in that it reflects the perspective of the one person who had cheque-signing authority and whose neck was ultimately on the line if the projects unravelled! Indeed, the notion of efficient administrative structure, and proven experience in bringing the Economic Atlas of Ontario to fruition, was a key legitimizing component of the successful application for SSHRCC support for the Historical Atlas of Canada project. My comments here focus on whether there is a distinction between the administrator/director structure and the content/editor structure for both atlases. Dean reminds us that the Economic Atlas of Ontario had its genesis in matrix algebra and techniques of spatial analysis that transformed
i82 / Deryck W. Holdsworth economic geography in the 19605. It is surely a testimony to the talents of the research team and especially the atlas cartographer, Geoff Matthews, that the volume has had a shelf life that outlasted many of the dead-ends of that iteration of human geography. Here, Dean summarizes the structure as boxes defined by distribution, analysis, and synthesis of data on population, manufacturing, resource industries, wholesale and consumer trade, agriculture, recreation, transportation and communications, and administration. The 'black box' - to use the notion from quantitative systems analysis of that era - must have been the magic and artistry of the cartographic process; indeed Dean emphasizes how important the cartography was. How else could work from a set of graduate students hired on as a 'make-work project' lead to an award-winning Atlas? Was there no other editorial filter between initial data gathering and manipulation and eventual cartographic representation? To answer that question, I was curious to re-read the front matter of the published volume,2 which lists an Advisory Committee of eighteen people, most of them faculty members at four universities in Ontario, and a Research Staff of fifty-six. Dean's preface singles out two research supervisors, James Gilmour and Joan Retallack who 'not only contributed many fresh ideas, but also carried their research responsibilities through to the end of the research phase at considerable personal sacrifice.' Even a quarter of a century later, I doubt whether we should conclude that matrix matters more than people. Perhaps there was a second matrix of research supervisors and advisors that was a critical editorial component of atlas structure. Similarly as Director of the Historical Atlas of Canada project, Dean analyzes the overall organizational structure that comprised core working groups, editorial boards, editors, cartographers, and cartographic editor. Again only the last of these is named, perhaps understandable given the brilliance of Matthews's unifying cartography across hundreds of maps over 191 plates. Another layer of successful administrative structure came from the fact that the 'Atlas was extremely fortunate to be able to retain the meticulous personal interest and care of the same copy editor, translator, with various helpers, and toponymic advisor for all three volumes' (see p. 159). This is particularly important given the 'Canadian problem' of bilingual writing and production, and the distinctly different regional bases of the editorial work on each volume. They too helped the seamless unity. On content editorial issues, Dean is perhaps understandably less connected. Tabulations on the relative roles played by editors and
The Politics of Editing a National Historical Atlas / 183 editorial boards (two-thirds of all plates in Volume I of the Historical Atlas of Canada) could be discussed more as a reflection on the fundamentally different geographic spaces and times that were the foci of the different volumes. In order to synthesize early Canada, there was a small cadre of scholars and scholarship to inform portrayals of the pre-contact native world, the fur trade, the fisheries, and agricultural settlement. The archipelago of mappable spaces lent itself to a small team, in contrast to the vastness of space and the multidisciplinary lenses that were available to scan the horizon for twentieth-century Canada in Volume in. Similarly Dean's sense that Volume I underwent a learning experience for cartography, with up to twelve designs needed before producing a satisfactory mock-up (see p. 158), reflect his administrator's anxious or stressed view of timetable. A counterbalancing view needs to be framed by inspection of the incredible complexity of many of the plates in that volume. Consider, for example, how to locate every single fur-trading post in a vast land of rivers and streams (Moodie, Lytwyn, and Kaye's Plate 62 on Trading Posts 1774-1821, at 1:5,700,000 scale); or how to convey the essence of Acadian marshland agricultural settlements (Daigle's Plate 29, various scales); or the twenty maps that Heidenreich produced to summarize the French/Indian fur trade (especially plates 34, 35,37,38,39 and 40, mostly at 1:17,000,000 scale). All these examples, and many others, present data through multiple layers of ecological, social, and economic information. These are a far cry from the 3-D graphs or pie charts that could be placed within provincial boundaries, on a blank outline map of Canada at a scale of 1:30,000,000, for plates in Volume in. I will discuss below some of the incredibly complex maps developed for Volume III (see note 11). The point is that very few of these plates fall into the same-base-map-butdifferent-data formula that are found on plate after plate of many state atlases. Unique places and times meant unique cartographic problems, especially when the vast majority of plates in all three volumes contained never-before-mapped data. For Cole Harris, comments on the editorial process as he experienced it in connection with Volume I of the Historical Atlas of Canada involved the need to 'locate' himself, six years later, as part of 'an implicit system of power embedded in language and convention' (see p. 165). This is starkly clear in his recognition that the Fluted Point People were turned into early Canadians in Volume I, a comment grounded as much in his awareness of imperial cultural discourse surrounding his current work on British Columbia's historical geography
184 / Deryck W. Holdsworth as by debates on archaeological regions at the time of plate construction. Since as an author and editor he felt too implicated to properly deconstruct the volume, he opted instead to reflect on the consequences of his honest, naive optimism that had been based on his prior editorial and research experience. The complexity of the intellectual challenge, and the gap between draft data and scribeable maps, certainly meant that the volume was soon living on "borrowed, financially uncertain time' (see p. 166) but that naive optimism, and an uncompromising stance on quality, resulted in a volume that set the standard for its two companions to emulate. For the editorial team in Volume I, the opportunity and challenge to fill sixty-nine plates was a wonderful opportunity to synthesize a considerable amount of disparate knowledge on early Canada in one volume. Archaeologists and anthropologists would have the chance to summarize recent findings and interpretations, scholars in and of Atlantic Canada could make that region's fascinating and rich past more understandable than many gave time or credit for in an urban/ industrial/corporate modern Canada, and the elements of Nouvelle France could be critically reassembled. Plates came together within five broad sections - Prehistory, the Atlantic Realm, Inland Expansion, the St Lawrence Settlements, and the Northwest - from which Harris could then, and even more so now, argue to English Canada 'that the country emerged out of a French position in North America, that English Canada would not exist were it not for the French presence in North America' (see p. 179). It would be interesting to know whether or not that was the view of his editorial board. Were the explosions over authors' meanings in the texts (see p. 167) simply about stylistic unity, and do the references to the authoritarian and imperial tendencies of the editor have multiple meanings? Again, what does the historiography of cartography need to know? It is clear from Harris's essay that his passion for Canada, and for demonstrating the contributions of historical geography to an understanding of current issues, is as strong now as it was throughout the difficult years of editing Volume I. But, like a parent who suppresses the memories of uncomfortable pregnancy, painful birth, and colic-interrupted sleep, I suspect that the six-year distancing from the realities of editing steers this reflection into its present form, one that renders essences - be they 'lovely dreams' or 'morality plays.' For me too, the difficulties tumble with the delights, and a great deal of information should simply fade away. Below I tangentially comment on Harris's paper perhaps thereby removing a few of the silences on
The Politics of Editing a National Historical Atlas / 185 content editorial issues, by attempting to sketch some of the (historiographically relevant) politics of editing Volume ill. The pipeline of atlas work involved a broad array of funded research effort that was capable of producing hundreds of draft maps and graphs and thousands of words of text, all of which had to be sifted and sorted through a narrow, pragmatic framework of cartographic design and a precise production process geared to creating seventy plates for a bound volume. The editors were most often mediators between the researcher and the cartographer. First they needed to be educated on cartographic limits (for example, three categories instead of six for a range of data so that colours would be clear, and twelve rather than two dozen separate items3 on a plate so that the reader could comfortably absorb and understand the thrust of the interpretation). The editors could then try to head off, in a hundred researchers' works, the tendency towards overly detailed information from authors used to writing thirty-page journal articles or 3oo-page manuscripts. Containing and limiting those tendencies added 'human relations officer' to the job description, a list already stretched beyond the apparently simple starting point of conventional editorship. Don Kerr was exceedingly generous in sharing the editorial challenges, then headaches and finally rewards of editing Volume III, Addressing the Twentieth Century.4 My comments here, however, are my own reflections on the editorial task, and they are shaped by the tumbling set of ideas on authorship, authority, and representation that have invigorated human geography in the years since the atlas was completed. I have organized my reflections around seven distinct aspects of the politics of editing. The Politics of Disciplines The Historical Atlas of Canada drew authorial representation across a spectrum of academic disciplines - Geography, History, Economics, Anthropology, Sociology, Political Science, Kinetics, Art, Theatre among others. Within this array, we selected revisionist, non-establishment perspectives to offer fresh interpretations on the nation's economic and social development. For editors, this breadth of disciplinary talent meant both the need for a working knowledge of the debates that energized (and divided) the halls of the academy and also a clear vision of the intended final product, so that we could hold firm to the rudder during stormy times. Critical to our success was the willingness of an Editorial Board to be an antenna for those disciplinary debates.
i86 / Deryck W. Holdsworth Greg Kealey, Marvin Mclnnis, Chad Gaffield, Jim Simmons, and Larry McCann helped us to develop a list of potential authors, and then helped us shape a table of contents effectively to mesh their works together. Ultimately, authors fed work into the pipeline intrigued by the possibilities of visual representation not always central to their own communication style; they discovered the possibilities of geographical perspectives while staying true to their own disciplinary heritage. The Politics of Region
Unlike the ideological context of birthing Volume I,5 Volume in did not develop during the Trudeau years, but rather those of Clark's 'Community of Communities' and thereafter Mulroney's 'Continentalism.' Regions mattered. In the years leading up to Meech Lake, Quebec stood out as a region among regions, of course, but we sought to be balanced in regional case studies while still seeking a national interpretation. We were pursuing interpretations of Canada that were based around the notion of core/periphery, or heartland/hinterland; this view of the nation deliberately linked Ontario and Quebec as one region. At this stage of Quebec's history, most Quebec scholars that we approached for advice wanted to compare Quebec's economic and social characteristics with the rest of the country, whether manufacturing or education or whatever. In pushing their critique of the past to new dimensions, they were anxious to see Quebec's position vis-a-vis Canada, warts and all. However, we did not want to do injustice to alternative interpretations of Quebec as a distinct society. In this regard, the editorial task was strengthened by the generosity of academics like Normand Seguin and Fernand Harvey, and later Paul-Andre Linteau. Linteau was not just a contributing author on Montreal, nor just simply the person who supervised the superb translation produced by Marcel Pare.6 As a student of Quebec and Canadian history, he 'read' each plate with intense interest and helped improve the initial English essays prior to translation. A second aspect of regional issues was related to travel. Kerr and I were both based in Toronto.7 Many authors were initially suspicious about our assumed hegemonic, Toronto-centred views of the country, so we needed to demonstrate a respect for local interpretations. We travelled a great deal. We visited and revisited the home institutions of our contributing authors. We listened and, when we sent authors draft sketches of plates based on material they had given us, we
The Politics of Editing a National Historical Atlas / 187 listened again. We had to develop a confidence, all across the country, that we understood the thrust of the plate being crafted, especially if it differed from views crafted along the Laurentian axis. The Politics of Production
As the fiscal health of the project deteriorated, part of the editorial mission became the need to indicate demonstrable progress towards goals. Accountability became of central importance. Quarterly reports became a political necessity since vast quantities of public money were being invested in the project with no tangible product until bound volumes were published.8 More and more, the core-working group (myself, Susan Laskin and Murdo MacPherson, with later contributions by Pat Orr) developed research output in the Coach House,9 as the urgency of time and money and the appetites of seven production cartographers became more and more intolerant of fuzzy research and dawdling contributors. One unintended outcome of this insistent schedule was that we had a set of partial authors. One possible author had access to data in one part of the country, another knew about another region. Both authors, who might never meet in the course of the project, contributed segments of a plate sometimes brokered by a core-working-group member who also became an author of that plate. I can understand the frustration that some 'partial' plate authors feel about their level of autonomy or attribution,10 but we had to get a cohesive volume together, to a deadline, and some shortcuts had to be taken. One positive outcome of this core-led work was that the editorial office developed a mock-up atlas, a 'wish list' if you like, with sequences of plates sketched out, so that we could explain to a partial author what (and why) a plate would look like. As conjecture gave way to certainty, and hollow sketches were replaced by precisely drawn maps and graphs, each editorial board meeting could focus on the cadence of the plates in sequence, and thus discuss the balance between portions of the volume. We had divided the plates into two temporal segments, The Great Transformation, 1891-1928; and Crisis and Response, 1929-1961; and then within each segment considered the need for plates that stressed national or regional coverage as well as economic or social emphasis. It became clearer and clearer that some plates had to be shifted, and that some overarching introductory plates had to be organized. Here too it was the core group, plus the editorial board, that became unintended authors. Drafts of the linking essays
i88 / Deryck W. Holdsworth came early as a result, and editorial board discussions on plate sequences meant that final revisions to those essays could be suggested by all the board in that final summer. The Politics of Gender
The research and production of Volume II was unfolding as a rising tide of dis-satisfaction was being voiced concerning the androcentric assumptions of male academics. The editorial board, especially Chad Gaffield and Greg Kealey, were ever alert to the opportunities to redress this imbalance. Lynn Marks, then a doctoral student in History at York University, was the author or co-author of several plates herself, but in addition she generously read and re-read drafts of plates and plate texts to advise us on how to accomplish a more gendersensitive analysis. In this she had a constant companion in Susan Laskin, who emerged as a remarkable scholar of twentieth century Canada as the editorial process deepened. The Politics of Representation
This editorial issue has two distinct components. One involved the construction of design sketches. Cole Harris has reflected in his paper on the period of time it took for him to develop an understanding of the role of Geoff Matthews as Design Cartographer. Volume n was proposing an alternative model, that of a cartographic committee. Kerr and I could see the dangers of this approach as academic cartographers across the country looked forward to the opportunity to try out new ideas, theories, and map projections; this could potentially lead to a multitude of portrayals that might have distracted from the overall research effort. Instead we could see the overwhelming value of a single, clear design signature and knew from experience that we could get quick feedback on new approaches.11 By consciously approving the one-cartographer model, we risked (and certainly received) hostility or indifference from portions of the cadre of quality cartographers across the country. So developing a thick skin became another part of the baggage of editorship. The second aspect of representation involves issues in social theory, postmodernism and political correctness, as we negotiated maps of meaning.12 We had a deep concern for readership, both our academic peers and the broader lay-person audience. On many of my trips across the country to meet with authors I would be invited to give
The Politics of Editing a National Historical Atlas / 189 talks on the Atlas, and I would show slides of draft plates. Among the responses to drafts were comments on colour. Why use shades of green for poverty, asked an Irish scholar? Why use green for American, said an American academic concerned about the reductionist caricature of the green dollar for a commercial, money oriented country? Shades of blue on a map of Winnipeg, to show pockets of Jewish settlement in the North End, were also used for death rates in the influenza epidemic of 1918; what insensitivity to the Holocaust did this imply? (See Figure 7.1.) We had maps showing Japanese-Canadian concentration camps (or internment camps, depending on who you are talking to); why spend this amount of space on 'them' rather than on military battlefields where Canadians fought and died, said one veteran? Why haven't you shown the Ukrainian internment camps from the Great War, asked a Ukrainian nationalist? We portrayed material on the Mackenzie-Papineau Brigade in Spain, as part of our interpretation of the politics of the Depression, but this was not an 'official war/ noted an Ottawa bureaucrat. We also received comment that Newfoundland was not a part of Canada during the Great War, so why show dead and injured in St John's rather than in Montreal or Edmonton (our author/researcher was based there, and we decided that the 'colonial status' of Canada and Newfoundland was worth noting). These comments, and the necessary thoughtful response in later plate drafts, suggest that here then was an editorial process shaped by readership, or if you like, by the client. Here perhaps was a hint of both the past and the interactive cartography of the near future. Yet from this exposure, we gained a quiet confidence that we had selected and presented topics that hit a nerve in popular culture, that touched ordinary lives. If we were truly able to produce an atlas that stressed economic and social issues and everyday life, in distinction from traditional political atlases, then we had an Annaliste view, or an E.P. Thompson view of the making of a Canadian culture. Our coverage of hockey, recreation, the Depression, and the wars, meant that people could look and see themselves - or if not themselves, then their parents. A critical but far too often taken-for-granted element of accessibility to our readership was the work of copy editor Joan Bulger, who gently but firmly expunged academic jargon and challenged authors and editors to write clearly. We had simultaneously to tap the postgraduate research frontier and package a grade eight reading-level text.
190
Figure 7.1 Plate 31, 'Winnipeg: A Divided City' from Historical Atlas of Canada,
191
Volume in (1990) showing ethnic origins. By permission of University of Toronto Press.
192 / Deryck W. Holdsworth The Politics of Power Brian Harley has sensitized us to the implicit acts of imperialism embedded in any editorial project.13 There are contested meanings and interpretations in scholarship, and the very fact of one of those meanings and interpretations being dominant, backed by the imprimatur of a major Press and funded by an agency of the federal government, made this a quasi-official project. Even though we embraced many revisionist perspectives, presented interpretations that inclined towards the side of labour rather than the side of capital, it was still a power statement by a liberal intelligentsia.14 Its reading of ordinary lives was partial. Its colours were warm, positive and gentle, even if the subjects lived hard, marginal lives. But we also tried to address some of the power relations, and in that sense we can be proud in retrospect that we tried to present different 'takes' of the same phenomenon. On Plate 2, Territorial Evolution, which treats the inexorable making of the Canadian provincial mosaic from the vast Northwest Territories, the very first image below the title juxtaposes two views of northwestern British Columbia. Bob Galois, author of two other plates on British Columbia, had been working as a research consultant for the Gitskan-Wet'suwet'en in the Skeena, to accumulate material for a court case on aboriginal land claims. We juxtaposed the map of the broad traditional territories identified with the wolf, frog, eagle, fireweed and beaver clans with the Pre-Emptor's map of the Buckley Valley in 1922, the 'official' view of land controlled by timber licence, government reserve, British Columbia Land Settlement Board and, microscopic in size, spaces identified for Indian reserve. These two maps need considerable commentary; the mere 150 words available does a mockery to their serious complexity. But perhaps the juxtaposition, on that early plate, tried to give voice to the silences of maps. Other segments of other plates invite similar close readings. The Politics of Interpretation The Historical Atlas of Canada, Volume ill, was and is about a nation. But it was also about Nation versus Regions and Nation versus Continent. We cast our definition of Canada as a struggle for identity and autonomy within a century when economic and social power shifted from the British to the American Empire. Many of our plates chronicle moments of penetration by American capital for resource extraction and manufacturing and, in different media, by American culture. The struggle to resist or ameliorate this penetration, to make an east-west
The Politics of Editing a National Historical Atlas / 193 nation on a north-south continent was a central theme by the end of our period.15 We were researching and writing the volume as the Free Trade debate raged. We realized at the last, at the persuasive insistence of Marvin Mclnnis, that this American multinational capitalism was itself a moment in globalization. Americans who now feel the shoe on the other foot as Hollywood or the Rockefeller Center are bought by Japanese corporations might look at our Atlas with a little more understanding, and perhaps see why Canadians have so long embraced a National Policy in one way or another that distinguishes the border. One final comment. Research, production and representation are coming together as Geographic Information System (Gis) talents dominate Geography in the 19905. Initially, this seems a crisis as the sophistication of conventional cartography and patient scholarship, both concerned with nuances, are in danger of being replaced by an unthinking 19605 spatial science. Quantitative techniques are easier to encode than critical qualitative methods in a GIS. But fine cartography requires just as much skill and time using computer-based tools. The benefits accrue in revisions. Changes are less troublesome and this should and will enhance the editorial process. Critical map design and use should be fostered as scholars are provided with the means to express their own interpretations.16 Historical atlases have become prohibitively expensive to research and to produce, and the necessary computer infastructure and licensed software is equally expensive. If funding and the desire for another large historical atlas were to develop, what lessons have we learnt? That question requires an answer at least as long as this paper, but I suggest that we would need to harness the comparatively instantaneous production capacity with a discussion about representation and interpretation that keeps the spirit of Brain Harley and that keeps the Geography in Cartography. In our Atlas we worried about time, because we worried academically about how to represent historical moments of change and we worried politically about schedules. But time had an immense value. It offered the space for measured consideration. Time to edit, and to reflect, is critical for any effective work in historical geography. NOTES I would like to thank David DiBiase, Gunter Gad, Susan Friedman, and Don Kerr for useful comments on an earlier draft of this paper.
194 / Deryck W. Holdsworth 1 The context here is the debate on cartographic ethics, and prodded by Brian Harley's observation: 'Our philosophy - our understanding of the nature of maps - is not merely a part of some abstract intellectual analysis but ultimately a major strand in the web of social relations by which cartographers project their values into the world.' J. Brian Harley, 'Can There Be a Cartographic Ethics?' Cartographic Perspetives 10 (1991): 13. 2 William G. Dean and G.J. Matthews, Economic Atlas of Ontario (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1969). 3 These items included the text blocks, usually two blocks of about 200 words, three or four other smaller blocks of notes that explained particular maps or graphs, and the legend block materials for all visuals. Matthews had to constantly reject author/editor's temptations to squeeze more material onto crowded plates. Clarity and simplicity, more with less, was achieved by letting straightforward cartography float in a relaxed manner on a white background. The design conundrum was complicated by the need to have one central image on each two-page plate yet not have the gutter devour critical information. 4 Donald P. Kerr and Deryck W. Holdsworth, editors; Geoffrey Matthews, Cartographic Editor, Historical Atlas of Canada, Volume ill: Addressing the Twentieth Century (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1990). 5 See R. Cole Harris's paper in this volume. 6 L'Atlas historique du Canada in: Jusqu'au coeur du xxe siecle, 1891 a 1961 (Montreal: Presses de 1'Universite de Montreal, 1990). 7 In reality both Kerr and I had lived and studied in British Columbia, and I had taught in the Maritimes. While teaching at the University of Toronto, Kerr's courses on the regional geography of Canada were dedicated to explaining the rest of Canada, and especially Quebec, to students whose views and experiences were extremely Torontocentred. 8 Each volume of the Atlas acted as a quasi-granting agency with the SSHRCC funds, but since the main effort of our project was the Atlas, we could do little to encourage 'conventional' publication of research results. In many cases, modest amounts of research money went to authors so that they could enlarge or complete a data set already in their possession, thereby making it useful for the Atlas. 9 The core working group for Volume in became known as the 'CoachHouse,' since the offices were located on the upper floor of a garage behind a former house on St. George Street. This space was nicely removed from the cartographic office, if frustratingly distant from the
The Politics of Editing a National Historical Atlas / 195
10
11
12 13
14
xerox machine and libraries on cold winter days. But the suite of three offices became the setting for many hours of intense discussion, the place where data was sorted and sifted, and where experiments on representation and juxtaposition were made prior to discussing the material with Matthews. It was also the place where telephone contact with authors was made, and where draft plate text was edited and reedited. See the essay by Anne B. Piternick, 'Author problems in a collaborative research project/ Scholarly Publishing 25, i (Oct 1993): 21-37. A crucial early example involved the way that data on four decades of strikes were arranged in three-dimensional cubes, four for each province (together with the national figures for Canada and for industry groups) with each axis devoted to frequency, size and duration. Geoff Matthews was more than happy to work through many drafts of one data set, searching for the right perspective that would let forty-four distinct cubes be read, and the plate's authors (Greg Kealey and Doug Cruickshank) soon realized that they would be associated with some of the most stunning visuals in the volume. Once the approach was agreed upon for Plate 39, it was used to portray strike data in the Depression (Plate 45), and for strikes in two post-war decades (Plate 62). Challenges such as this, and the eagerness that Matthews displayed in working with us on such complex problems, meant that we could take dozens of suggestions to him - for example, stacks of coin for value of Primary Production (Plate 5); railroad rails for graphs on rail trackage and revenue (Plate 6); grain elevators for a plate on the grain handling system (Plate 19); cogs for a plate on the workforce (Plate 37); a box car graph for relief shipments to Saskatchewan during the Depression (Plate 42) - with confidence that he would fold these startlingly novel devices into a consistent, albeit varied, cartographic style. See Peter Jackson, Maps of Meaning (London: Unwin, 1988). Two examples point the way. J. Brian Harley, 'Maps, Knowledge and power/ in Denis Cosgrove and Stephen Daniels, eds, Iconography and Landscape: Essays on the Symbolic Representation, Design and Use of Past Environments (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 277-312; also his 'Deconstructing the Map/ Cartographica 26 (i989):i-2O. Consequently, perhaps the ultimate power statement in historical geography is revisionism that allows no subsequent revision due to prohibitive cost!
196 / Deryck W. Holdsworth 15 See, for example, the Massey Report, Report of the Royal Commission on National Development in the Arts, Letters and Sciences, 1949-1951 (Ottawa: King's Printer, 1951); and the Gordon Report, Final Report of the Royal Commission on Canada's Economic Prospects (Ottawa: Queens Printer, 1957). 16 Mark Monmonier, Mapping It Out, Expository Cartography for the Humanities and Social Sciences (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1
993)«
MEMBERS OF THE CONFERENCE James R. Akerman (Speaker), Hermon Dunlap Smith Center for the History of Cartography, The Newberry Library, Chicago Sandra Alston, Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, University of Toronto Carl Amrhein, Chair, Department of Geography, University of Toronto Emmanuelle Arnaud, Graduate student, McMaster University, Hamilton Roger S. Baskes, Chicago M.E. Louise Beck, Toronto Maria Bedynski, National Archives of Canada, Ottawa G.E. Bentley, Jr., Department of English, University College, University of Toronto Trudy Bodak, York University Library David Bosse, William L. Clements Library, Ann Arbor Elizabeth Buchanan, University of Toronto Schools John Buffone, Graduate student, Carleton University, Ottawa Mead T. Cain, New York City Wendy Cameron, Historical researcher, Toronto Michael Cartwright, Departement de langue et litterature franchises, McGill University, Montreal Edward H. Dahl (Chairperson), Early Cartography Specialist, National Archives of Canada, Ottawa Marija Dalbello-Lovric, University of Toronto Susan Danforth, John Carter Brown Library, Providence, Rhode Island William G. Dean (Speaker), Professor Emeritus, Geography, University of Toronto; Director, Historical Atlas of Canada project Anne Dondertman, Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, University of Toronto Lorraine Dubreuil, Department of Rare Books, McLennan Library, McGill University, Montreal Dennis Duffy, Department of English, Innis College, University of Toronto Matthew Edney (Commentator), Department of Geography, State University of New York, Binghamton Ralph Ehrenberg (Chairperson), Chief, Geography and Map Division, Library of Congress, Washington, DC Norman N. Feltes, Department of English, York University, Toronto Patricia Fleming, Faculty of Information Studies, University of Toronto Anne Godlewska (Speaker), Department of Geography, Queen's University, Kingston Walter A. Goffart (Speaker), Department of History, University of Toronto John Grant, Department of Classics, University College, University of Toronto
198 / Members of the Conference William B. Harnum, University of Toronto Press R. Cole Harris (Speaker), Department of Geography, University of British Columbia, Vancouver; Editor, Historical Atlas of Canada, vol. i Robert A. Highbarger, Potomac, Maryland Virginia Highbarger, Potomac, Maryland Deryck W. Holdsworth (Chairperson and Commentator), Department of Geography, Pennsylvania State University; Editor, Historical Atlas of Canada, vol. in Frida Kalbfleisch, National Archives of Canada, Ottawa Donald Kerr, Professor Emeritus, Geography, University of Toronto; Editor, Historical Atlas of Canada, vol. in Marie Korey, Massey College Librarian, University of Toronto Richard Landon, Director, Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, University of Toronto Janis Langins (Chairperson), Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology, University of Toronto Barbara B. McCorkle, Yale University Library, New Haven Sara McDowell, Library Science, University of Toronto Thomas R. Mcllwraith, Department of Geography, Erindale College, University of Toronto Randall McLeod, Department of English, Erindale College, University of Toronto Peter McNally, Graduate School of Library and Information Studies, McGill University, Montreal Aidan McQuillan, Department of Geography, University of Toronto Paul R. Magocsi (Chairperson), Chair of Ukrainian Studies, University of Toronto Geoffrey Matthews, Department of Geography, University of Toronto; Cartographic Editor, Historical Atlas of Canada Mary McDougall Maude, Editorial Consultant, Toronto Mary E. Murphy, National Archives of Canada, Ottawa Jeffrey Murray, Government Archives Division, National Archives of Canada, Ottawa Philip Oldfield, Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, University of Toronto Mary Sponberg Pedley (Speaker), William L. Clements Library, Ann Arbor Anne B. Piternick, Faculty of Library Science, University of British Columbia Carolyn Podruchny, Graduate student, History, University of Toronto Matthew Sparkes, Graduate student, Geography, University of British Columbia, Vancouver Yolanda Theunissen, University of South Maine Libraries, Gorham, Maine Dorn Van Dommelen, Geography, University of Toronto
Members of the Conference / 199 Germaine Warkentin, Department of English, Victoria College, University of Toronto John Warkentin (Chairperson), Department of Geography, York University, Toronto Joan Winearls (Conference Organiser), University of Toronto Library Lorraine Wright, University of Waterloo
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LIST OF PREVIOUS PUBLICATIONS 1965 Editing Sixteenth-Century Texts, ed. R.J. Schoeck (1966) 1966 Editing Nineteenth-Century Texts, ed. John M. Robson (1967) 1967 Editing Eighteenth-Century Texts, ed. D.I.B. Smith (1968) 1968 Editor, Author, and Publisher, ed. Wm. J. Howard (1969) 1969 Editing Twentieth-Century Texts, ed. Francess G. Halpenny (1972) 1970 Editing Seventeenth-Century Prose, ed. D.I.B. Smith (1972) 1971 Editing Poetry from Spenser to Dryden, ed. John M. Baird (1972) 1972 Editing Canadian Texts, ed. Francess G. Halpenny (1975) c1973 Editing Eighteenth-Century Novels, ed. G.E. Bentley (1975) 1974 Editing British and American Literature, 1880-1920, ed. Eric W. Domville (i976) 1975 Editing Renaissance Dramatic Texts, ed. Anne Lancashire (1976) 1976 Editing Medieval Texts, ed. A.G. Rigg (1977) 1977 Editing Nineteenth-Century Fiction, ed. Jane Millgate (1978) 1978 Editing Correspondence, ed. J.A. Dainard (1979) 1979 Editing Illustraated Books, ed. William Blissett (1980) 1980 Editing Poetry from Spenser to Dryden, ed. A.D. deQuehen (1981) 1981 Editing Texts in the History of Science and Medicine, ed. Trevor H. Levere (1982) 1982 Editing Polymaths, ed. H.J. Jackson (1983) 1983 Editing Early English Drama, ed. A.F. Johnston (1987) 1984 Editing, Publishing, and Computer Technology, ed. Sharon Butler and William P. Stoneman (1988) 1985 Editing and Editors, ed. Richard Landon (1988) x1986 Editing Modern Economists, ed. D.E. Moggridge (1988) 1987 Editing Greek and Latin Texts, ed. John N. Grant (1989) 1988 Crisis in Editing: Texts of the English Renaissance, ed. Randall McLeod (1994) 1989 Challenges, Projects, Texts: Canadian Editing, ed. John Lennox and Janet M. Paterson (1993) 1990 Music Discourse from Classical to Early Modern Times, ed. Rika Maniates (forthcoming) 1991 The Politics of Editing Medieval Texts, ed. Roberta Frank (1992) 1992 Critical Issues in Editing Exploration Texts, ed. Germaine Warkentin (1995) 1993 Editing Early and Historical Atlases, ed. Joan Winearls (1995) 1994 Editing Texts from the Age of Erasmus, ed. Erika Rummel (forthcoming)