A majority of these maps are maps. They record the contemporaneous land masses with town or area names to match the period they are meant to discuss. Mountain ranges are drawn in, along with some rivers. To me, the most notable sight of rivers were in maps of Israel. In the map of Israel, Ortelius also wrote in the names of the tribes in the places that they were meant to have been. While the maps of Ancient Greece or the Roman Empire lacked borders of places, only pasting names over space, the map of Israel includes dashed lines to indicate borders. Given the religiously charged nature of Ortelius's time period, the mid-to-late 1500s, it may be fruitful to explore further why these marks are made.
Two of the pieces in the Parergon are drawings of the towns of Tempe and Daphne. These are not like the works of the Civitates Orbis Terrarum, which is a work by Georg Braun that Abraham Ortelius was keen on. Instead of a birds eye view or a panorama of a city, the "towns" of Tempe and Daphne are more like portraits of natural landscapes. While not realistic like the paintings we went to see in the Art Institute, the perspective bears similarity. Ortelius's drawings look at heavily forested areas that are dotted with small people, some laying around and eating, some running. There is little sense of civilization. Each drawing has a temple and the implication of a society somewhere in the distance, but the purpose of the drawing does not seem anthropological or cartographic. These drawings lay heavily in the realm of imagined landscapes and one of my secondary sources places them under the header of "paradises."
The one map that I actually wanted to look at, the journey of the Patriarch Abraham, was not included within this particular folder of the Parergon. I then noticed that it said it was an incomplete version, which explains the absence. I will be trying again tomorrow or the next day to come look at this map, which I may want to focus on.
By the end of looking at the Parergon, I had a headache. From looking at small print on a map, yes, but also because everything in this text is in Latin. I can't read Latin, I didn't try to read Latin, but I still had a headache by the end of the folder. When I came back to my room to trying and find a translation of the text, my google search pulled up absolutely nothing. It was only through digging around in the biography of a secondary source that I found a copy, but I honestly don't even know where to begin looking for it. However, it is vital for a work like this, where Ortelius includes written material on the back of his maps explaining something (what? I have no clue) about his work.
Further, I realized I desperately need to brush up on my Renaissance history, especially the Northern Renaissance, which never gets as much airtime as the Italian. The implications of historical atlases depend on something further than understanding the rise of Neoclassicism and the revival of those values. Abraham Ortelius was educated on antiquities, having been taught Greek and Latin during his youth. He collected ancient coins. It is fair to call him a humanist and, therefore, to make understandable his inclusion of material like the Parergon in his world atlas. However, many questions crop up around the work. Why did he include maps of Israel or the travels of Abraham? How were these Parergon maps used? Who read them? Did Spain appropriate these maps and their history? Did Spain or the royalty of Spain have any thoughts on it? How did Ortelius's own faith come into these maps, especially the sacred ones?
My research has drawn me a little further into some of these questions, or at least has opened possible doors to explore these thoughts more. We will see where it goes.
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Meurer, Peter. "Ortelius as the Father of Historical Cartography," In Abraham Ortelius and the First Atlas: Essays Commemorating the Quadricentennial of His Death, 1598-1998. Edited by M. P. R. van den Broecke, P. C. J. van den Krogt, and Peter Meurer. Houten; HES, 1998.
Tempe is the vale of Tempe, a traditional “locus amoenus” or pleasant place, often referred to by poets.
ReplyDeleteDaphne is a nymph, but I have no idea what place is being referred to. This is interesting.
One thing to think about is the fact that humanists were confronted with two very different traditions: the Classical world and the Judeo-christian world. Reconciling the two required substantial intellectual work, and there were a number of strategies that are reflected in the art, literature, and history of the period. Scholars like Leonard Barkan (in *The God’s Made Flesh: Metamorphosis & the Pursuit of Paganism*. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986.) have taken on the issue of the pagan gods in Renaissance.
For Latin, Google Translate (translate.google.com) now includes Latin. Because of the word-order issues, it’s not perfect, but it can help you work through a lot of inscriptions.
It's interesting to see people with very different topics having some of the same issues as I am. Languages seem to be a big barrier with works that haven't been widely translated into English. I hope you can find answeres as to who would have read these maps, since the people who would have been able to read latin at this time would have likely been scholars, the wealthy, or the clergy members. It seems to me like the answer to this question could provide some interesting insight into the material itself, particularly why some areas were included with more details than others.
ReplyDeleteYou are no dummy! You just need a crash course in Latin for absolute beginners. :)
ReplyDeleteI had a wonderful Latin teacher in high school, and I must say that learning Latin has served me well in a variety of ways. But I think that fewer and fewer high schools are offering it because of budget constraints.
That is all an aside. You have run into a central challenge in historical research. Competency in other languages is often critical, yet few of us are properly trained. If you haven't already, talk to Jim Ackerman or perhaps Jill Gage (or another reference librarian) about finding a copy of a translation. If you cannot find one, you may need to be flexible about your topic.