Regular meetings of the Washington Map Society are held in the Reading
Room, Geography and Map Division, B level, Library of Congress, Madison
Building, 101 Independence Ave., S.E., Washington, DC.  The Library is
one block from METRO's Capitol South Station, on the Blue and Orange
lines.  To inquire about the following events or to offer meeting
suggestions, please contact the chairman of the WMS Program Committee,
Howard Lange, tel. 703-532-1605 or email [log in to unmask]
<mailto:[log in to unmask]>.  Following is information on March and
April meetings.


On Thursday, March 13, 2008, at 7:00 p.m., Dr. Richard Betz and Penelope
Betz will present The Cartobibliographic Process used for The Mapping of
Africa:  Sebastian Münster's 1540 Map of Africa as a Case Study.  Dr.
Betz has recently written The Mapping of Africa: A Cartobibliography of
Printed Maps of the African Continent to 1700.  His book is the first
major undertaking to systematically categorize and describe all printed
maps of the African continent to 1700, and Dr. Betz will describe the
process of research and compilation.  The Betz's will illustrate with a
case study: Sebastian Münster's double-page map of Africa, which is
present in all four editions of his Geographia from 1540 to 1552, and in
all twenty-nine editions of his Cosmographia from 1544 to 1578.  They
discovered no less than 15 variants of the map, and they will use this
example to discuss the major elements of a cartographic entry.  Dr. Betz
has offered to date any examples of Münster's Africa that members bring
to the meeting.  Richard and Penelope Betz have had a lifelong
attraction to Africa.  They lived on the continent for twelve years
while Richard was engaged in promoting economic development.  His
doctoral work concerned rural enterprise in Africa.  Penelope taught art
and English in various international and American schools and has
written and edited textbooks and training materials.


On Thursday, April 17, 2008, at 7:00 pm, Dr. Francesca Fiorani will
address the Society on The Places of Renaissance Mapping.  Renaissance
maps combined different systems of representation, different modes of
description and different signs, commingling features of medieval
cartography with the quintessential feature of modern mapping, the
grid.  How shall we account for the ways in which places were
represented in European maps?  Dr. Fiorani will discuss an approach to
Renaissance maps that takes into account simultaneously their spatial
and cultural context.  She believes that the meanings of cartographic
artifacts -from individual prints to painted galleries and atlases- are
best understood by combining an investigation of the maps themselves and
the spaces that contain them with an analysis of mapping in relation to
other forms of knowledge and representation.  Francesca Fiorani received
her Ph.D. in Renaissance Art from the University of Rome "La Sapienza"
and joined the University of Virginia in 1995.  She has written
extensively on Leonardo da Vinci, Renaissance cartography and mapping,
scientific culture in Renaissance courts, and artistic theory.  Her
recent book The Marvel of Maps. Art, Cartography and Politics in
Renaissance Italy, focuses on two compelling map murals of the
Renaissance - the Guardaroba Nuova of the Palazzo Vecchio, Florence, and
the Gallery of Maps in the Vatican.

Regards,

Howard Lange

For additional information about the Washington Map Society or its
programs, please visit us on the web at www.mashmap.org
<http://www.mashmap.org>.