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La figure du monde universel (world map)

Hand-coloured woodcut print

La figure du monde universel (world map)
1552 

by Sebastian Münster
publisher: Heinrich Petri, Basel
hand-coloured woodcut print
purchased 2019
M2 100/1552/1

 

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Transcript

Sebastian Münster's cosmography was the most reproduced cosmographic text of the 16th century by far. It was translated into many languages. It was reprinted in many editions. So what we're seeing in this map is an image of the world that would've been before the eyes of a lot of people in Europe. So this map by Münster basically shows all these hypothetical ways that you could get through the new world to reach Asia. So we have a northwest passage above North America. We have a passage through North America, and then here, we have the so-called Sea of Verrazano, which presented the possibility of getting – if one could just across this little isthmus, then the rest of the way to the east was very easy. So this map is remarkable for showing the North Americas being so permeable to navigation.

Another remarkable thing about it is the shape of South America. So we have this enormous peninsula jutting off to the east which has no connection with reality and we have this enormous gulf on the west, which again, has no real connection with reality. And one thing I've done is I made a PowerPoint that shows South America on a series of maps throughout the 16th century, and South America has almost any shape you want, and it really raises interesting questions about the truth value of a map in the 16th century. If a whole continent can have almost any shape you want, what does it mean to draw a picture of it? How can we have any faith in it?

At the same time, the simple fact of the matter is most people didn't make that comparison. You had one map in front of you and maps are remarkably persuasive objects. We have a very strong tendency to believe what the cartographer depicts regarding the contours of the lands.

Curators/Speakers
Chet Van Duzer
Topic Title

Any shape you want  

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One thing that really jumps out is the fact that most of those sea monsters are in the Southern Ocean, and the Southern Ocean was the most distant and unknown, and there's a strong tendency to locate monsters in the furthest reaches of the Earth. Mysterious, bizarre creatures seemed more at place in the unknown reaches of the world.

The sea monsters that appear on maps often seem totally fantastic, as if the cartographer just invented them in that moment, but it was often the case that they were copied, and they might be copied from another map or they might be copied from a book that the cartographer would've thought to be reliable, something like an illustrated encyclopedia, and the monster in the lower left of the map, off the coast of South America, this spouting creature, so some type of whale, comes from a map made by Olaus Magnus in 1539, and it probably doesn't come directly from Olaus Magnus, but the sea monsters on his map were very, very influential, and they were copied by many cartographers.

My colleague, [Luigi de Anna 00:01:05] has suggested that the sea monsters on Olaus Magnus' map, which are very dense and numerous in the northern ocean, off the coast of Scandinavia, were put there with an economic motive, which was to dissuade the fisherman from other nations from visiting those waters, thus leaving the abundant catch for Scandinavian fisherman, which is a fantastic idea and suggestion.

One thing that's interesting to think about in that regard is images of sea monsters on maps versus images of ships on maps. They say two very different things. So an image of a sea monster conveys at least some danger, whereas an image of a ship conveys some confidence about the ability to navigate in whatever waters the ship is located in.

Curators/Speakers
Chet Van Duzer
Topic Title

Fantastical creatures  

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In the middle of the 16th century, there start to appear monsters that are just inventions, and that do not appear in any earlier book, and at that point – and again, this is the middle of the 16th century – the function of sea monsters on maps starts to change. They always have a decorative function, no matter what, but there was often an attempt to convey information about what was actually in the ocean, as surprising as that seems.

So a fantastic sea monster, again, was likely copied from a source that the cartographer thought was reliable, but when you start putting sea monsters on a map that are invented on the spot, the whole idea of conveying information is gone, and so the function of the sea monsters becomes purely decorative.

In the late 17th and 18th century, there's definitely a decline of sea monsters on maps. They become less numerous and they also become less imaginative and original, I think it's fair to say, whereas during that time, there was at least some increase in the depictions of ships on maps as maps came to be seen more as scientific instruments rather than as artistic creations, frankly.

Curators/Speakers
Chet Van Duzer
Topic Title

Art or instrument? 

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