-------- Original Message --------
Subject: RE: Medieval 'projection'
Date: Thu, 19 Jan 2012 15:09:24 -0600
From: Thornton, Jacob <[log in to unmask]>
To: Maps, Air Photo, GIS Forum - Map Librarianship <[log in to unmask]>
Hey David,
This is very helpful. I sent a message to the list, and will ultimately
probably follow your advice, but I just wanted to say thanks for the
extra background - lots here that I didn't know and this gives me a
great starting point and some resources to look for.
Thanks!
-Jacob
-----Original Message-----
From: Maps, Air Photo, GIS Forum - Map Librarianship
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Angie Cope, American
Geographical Society Library, UW Milwaukee
Sent: Thursday, January 19, 2012 10:06 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Medieval 'projection'
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: Medieval 'projection'
Date: Thu, 19 Jan 2012 11:05:19 -0500 (EST)
From: David Allen <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
My understanding is that map projections as we understand them were not
used in Europe during the Middle Ages. Although literate people at that
time understood that the earth was round, the idea of projecting the
spherical earth onto a flat surface was lost until Ptolemy's Geography
resurfaced in the early Renaissance. Although I am no expert on medieval
maps, I believe that recent studies of portolan charts have shown that
they show distances and locations as though they were mapped on a flat
surface. The closest thing to this "projection" is the equidirectangular
or "plain chart" projection. John P. Snyder explains this projection in
his book on Flattening the Earth. Also, it is probably safe to assume
that Mandeville and his readers gave no thought whatsoever to the
subject of map projections. Even something like the Catalan Atlas would
have been a more sophisticated production than anything they were
familiar with. People in the Middle Ages were not nearly as "map minded"
as we are, and had very vague ideas about distances and locations. If I
were working on this project, I would use a modern projection to map
Mandeville's place names. This is in a sense less anachronistic than to
pretend to create a map that supposedly looks like a map that Mandeville
might have made, if it had crossed his mind to make a map.
David Allen
Stony Brook University (retired)
-----Original Message-----
From: Angie Cope, American Geographical Society Library, UW Milwaukee
<[log in to unmask]>
To: MAPS-L <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Thu, Jan 19, 2012 6:41 am
Subject: Medieval 'projection'
attachment (jpeg)
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Medieval 'projection'
Date: Wed, 18 Jan 2012 14:10:39 -0600
From: Thornton, Jacob<[log in to unmask]
<mailto:[log in to unmask]>>
To:[log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]>
<[log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]>>
Hi all,
I have a unique request that I’m working on and thought the list might
be a great source. I’m the GIS guy in the Vanderbilt Library and am
giving an instruction session in a French Lit class that is studying
Mandeville’s travels in the 1300s. They want to map the locations he
went as part of a digital humanities section of the course. We’re going
to geocode modern place names that he was known to have traveled to, but
we’d like to be able to use a map from that time period. Naturally, the
modern projection didn’t exist.
Here’s a map they want to work with:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b1/Europe_Mediterranean_Catalan_Atlas.jpeg
I’ve attached my shot at georeferencing that map. I used the Mercator
projection, which I eyeballed to be the closest fit, but it is certainly
not perfect. The blue areas are modern landmasses that I’m using and you
can see how the map does or doesn’t line up. I don’t expect to ever get
a perfect fit, but I wonder if I could get a better one at least.
Has anyone here done work in this realm? Creating “projections” for the
way maps were drawn in medieval times, or at least choosing a modern
projection that has a closest fit? The time period is 1357-1371. The
goal is to get our geocode of modern place names to line up as well as
possible with the Medieval map.
Thanks in advance!
-Jacob
:::...:::...:::...:::...:::...:::...:::...:::...:::
Jacob B. Thornton
GIS Coordinator
Vanderbilt University
Jean and Alexander Heard Library
419 21st Avenue South
Nashville, TN 37240
http://www.library.vanderbilt.edu/gis
615.343.7542
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