In research for a centre: the founding of the City of Venice
“The King Pepin told the Venetians “You are under my reach and my provision as you are in my country and in my domain”. The Venetians answered him “We want to be subjects of...
“The King Pepin told the Venetians “You are under my reach and my provision as you are in my country and in my domain”. The Venetians answered him “We want to be subjects of...
This map shows the circumnavigation journey of the ship Victoria of Ferdinand Magellan’s expedition, from and to Sevilla, thus the first ship ever to circumnavigate the Planet (1519-1522 CE).
Geography is the science which studies space and its construction, not only its physical construction but also its social/political one. In other terms geography can be the discipline in quest for meaning of space. And cartography is the science of interpretation of power relations and communicating it via maps. In the light of these tow definitions we exposed, on this site, the rapports between the political centre, space and representation in some famous maps. First we worked on the maps of Heinrich Bunting: Jerusalem and Europe. Then we saw the Dutch Lion of Visscher.
Today our map is the BOHEMIAE ROSA, by Chr. Vetter, Vienna, 1668, a map representing Bohemia as a rose centred on Prague.
Dutch cartography has been one of the most elaborate and most refined in the world since the XVIth Century. A magnificent example of this cartography is the Leo Hollandicus map (1648) by Claes Janzsoon Visscher of Amsterdam, a striking representation of the Province of Holland embedded with political/ideological meaning (Figure 1). We analyse centrality as it is represented in this map and then we draw some results and horizons for further reasearch .
“Au mois d’avril 1768, le chapitre de Notre-Dame de Paris a fait placer dans son parvis, au pied de la tour septentrionale de son église, une pierre triangulaire, du milieu de laquelle sort un...
Centrality can tell about itself right from the centre ‘where power dwells,’ even if its narrative is usually charged with ideology: discourse analysis of the centre can be useful when done in critical préjugés-free ways.
But how periphery, borders, frontiers, “outsiders”, “outskirts”, limits, limitates can tell about the centre and about power dwelling in this centre? How can they tell its development, apogee, decadence, decline and even collapse? We can see the example of the Roman Empire.
“And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars:” (Revelation 12:1) We have already...
Romeyn De Hooghe (Amsterdam 1654 – Haarlem 1708) was a Dutch engraver and painter. His works are quite prolific, and he is regarded as one of the best Dutch Baroque artists. One of his...
This map, made circa 1596, is more than interesting: before all it is the result of the age when Europe began to know the world and to try to shape it after her...
This “amateur” map is more beautiful than many “real” and “professional” ones: it gives a possible visio mundi if Internet were ever to be sovereign powers on physical space. The most eminent names on...