A Map of Hell

Dr Peter Whitfield

Dr Peter Whitfield looks at the ghost story writer M R James and his connection with maps.

Mr Humphreys and His Inheritance

by M R James

Montagu Rhodes James (1862-1936) was a prolific British scholar, medievalist and palaeographer, who catalogued all the important manuscript collections in Cambridge, England. He became Provost of King’s College and then of Eton. He never married, but lived his entire life in the enclosed male realm of academic scholarship and college administration.

He also wrote some two dozen ghost stories which have carried his name far beyond the world of scholarship. But to call them ghost stories is misleading, for no white figures glide silently through darkened passages, or are glimpsed in the moonlight. James’s ghosts are demons, bestial and horrifying, and their power is physical, capable of stripping their victims’ flesh from their bones, after hunting them down and reducing them to terror. A typical James narrative shows this demonic thing escaping, getting out from the place where it has been imprisoned.

With a scholar’s delight in antiquarian detail, James invariably chooses a historical artefact – a picture, a piece of jewellery, a stained-glass window, a manuscript, an ancient well – as the prison, and it is invariably a curious scholar whose over-eager researches release the terror, and who pays the price. Not all the stories are successful by any means: some are wooden in their characterisation and over-fussy in detail, but when they work, the best of them distil an atmosphere that is not easily forgotten.

Given James’s typical approach – the fascination with manuscripts and with historical detail – it might be expected that an old map should form the mainspring of one of his plots, the focus of a haunting. Although James never used an identifiable historical map in quite that way, in his story Mr Humphreys and his Inheritance, the plan of a maze drawn by its owner does indeed act as the vehicle by which a demon lurking within the maze is released. There is a double cartographic interest in this story, because it transpires that the demon has been imprisoned in a decorative globe, which has been set up at the maze’s centre. It should be explained that Mr Humphreys has recently inherited an old house whose gardens contain the maze. The maze was laid out by his grandfather, a mysterious figure who died abroad and has no known grave or tomb. The maze has been locked and barred for years, and Mr. Humphreys has just penetrated it for the first time, finding the ancient bronze globe at the centre:

The column was featureless, resembling those on which sundials are usually placed. Not so the globe. I have said that it was finely engraved with figures and inscriptions, and that on first glance Mr.Humphreys had taken it for a celestial globe: but he soon found that it did not answer to his recollection of such things. One feature seemed familiar: a winged serpent – Draco – encircled about the place which on a terrestrial globe is occupied by the equator: but on the other hand, a good part of the upper hemisphere was covered by the outspread wings of a large figure whose head was concealed by a ring at the pole or summit of the whole. Around the place of the head the words “princeps tenebrarum” could be deciphered. In the lower hemisphere there was a space hatched all over with cross-lines and marked as “umbra mortis”. Near it was a range of mountains , and among them a valley with flames rising from it. This was lettered (will you be surprised to hear it ?) “vallis filiorum Hinnom”. Above and below Draco were various figures not unlike the pictures of the ordinary constellations, but not the same. Thus a nude man with a raised club was described not as Hercules but as “Cain”. Another, plunged up to his middle in earth and stretching out despairing arms, was “Chore” not Ophiucus, and a third, hung by his hair to a snaky tree was Absalom. Near the last, a man in long robes and high cap, standing in a circle and addressing two shaggy demons who hovered outside, was described as “Hostanes magus” (a character unfamiliar to Humphreys). The scheme of the whole indeed seemed to be an assemblage of the patriarchs of evil, perhaps not uninfluenced by a study of Dante. Humphreys reflected that it was an unusual exhibition of his grandfather’s taste, but reflected that he had probably picked it up in Italy.

Far from being a globe of the heavens, the writer is making it clear that Humphreys has stumbled on a globe of hell. All the characters named above are figures of evil, now damned in a Dantean inferno. Humphreys fails to realise the sinister significance of what he has seen, and plans to re-open the maze and show it to his neighbours. As a first step, he spends an afternoon drawing a plan of the maze in situ, and later that night he settles down in his library – by lamplight with bats flitting by the window – to copy it:

It was a still, stuffy evening: windows had to stand open, and he had more than one grisly encounter with a bat. These unnerving episodes made him keep the tail of his eye on the window. Once or twice it was a question whether there was – not a bat, but something more considerable – that had a mind to jolt him. How unpleasant it would be if someone had slipped noiselessly over the sill and was crouching on the floor!

The tracing of the plan was done: it remained to compare it with the original, and see whether any paths had been closed or left open. With one finger on each paper, he traced out the course that must be followed from the entrance. There were one or two slight mistakes, but here near the centre, was a bad confusion, probably due to the entry of the second or third bat. Before correcting the copy, he followed out the last turnings of the path on the original. These at least were right; they led without a hitch to the middle space. Here was a feature which need not be repeated on the copy – an ugly black spot about the size of a shilling. Ink ? No. It resembled a hole, but how should a hole be there ? He stared at it with tired eyes: the work of tracing had been very laborious, and he was drowsy and oppressed….But surely this was a very odd hole. It seemed to go not only through the paper, but through the table on which it lay. Yes, and through the floor below that, down, and still down, even into infinite depths. He craned over it, utterly bewildered. Just as, when you were a child, you may have pored over a square inch of counterpane until it became a landscape with wooded hills and perhaps even churches and houses, and you lost all thought of the size of yourself and it, so this hole seemed to Humphreys for the moment the only thing in the world. For some reason it was hateful to him from the first, but he had gazed at it for some moments before any feeling of anxiety came upon him; and then it did come, stronger and stronger – a horror lest something might emerge from it, and a really agonizing conviction that a terror was on its way, from the sight of which he would not be able to escape. Oh yes, far, far down there was a movement, and the movement was upwards – towards the surface. Nearer and nearer it came, and it was of a blackish-grey colour, with more than one dark hole. It took shape as a face – a human face – a burnt human face: and with the odious writhings of a wasp creeping out of a rotten apple, there clambered forth an appearance of a form, waving black arms prepared to clasp the head that was bending over them. With a convulsion of despair, Humphreys threw himself back, struck his head against a hanging lamp and fell.

Humphreys is in shock for some days, then recovers sufficiently to order the globe to be broken open: inside are found ashes, evidently remains of a human cremation. In some unexplained way, his ancestor’s remains had been hidden in the globe, and the drawing of the map allowed his spirit to escape out of the hell where it had been confined. The implication is that Humphreys’ ancestor was some kind of necromancer, a devotee of the occult, who had suffered the appropriate punishment. In this instance, Humphreys sustained no harm, but the other scholars in James’s stories usually suffer death – and a death so horrifying that those who see the body are haunted forever by the memory.

There is no ultimate explanation of the curse or the haunting: everything proceeds by hints and by suspicion. The pieces of the jigsaw are placed before the reader, but the author never quite puts them together for us. The intriguing thing about these stories is James’s fixed belief that a haunting requires a historical focus as its vehicle: a globe, a manuscript, a picture, or an inscription, becomes the focus of the demonic power. James seems to have seen in the artefacts of the past a concentration of old, pagan, demonic forces, which he delights in releasing into modern England. The temptation to psycho-analyse James himself is irresistible: in the composition of these stories, what was this disciplined and fastidious scholar releasing from the depths of his psyche.

Author: Peter Whitfield

The British Cartographic Society

British Cartographic SocietyMick Ashworth, as mad as us about maps and the president of the British Cartographic Society, introduces us to the society and its activity.

Nearly 40 years ago, on the 28th September 1963, a small group of cartographers founded the British Cartographic Society (BCS) with the aim of promoting the art and science of cartography. Today, this well-established and vibrant society retains its central aim, while reflecting in its activities and membership the great changes that have happened in cartography over the last forty years.

Its membership is open to anyone with an interest in maps. Members come from different paths of life and include representatives from the main governmental mapping agencies, major map and atlas publishers, freelance cartographers, map librarians, academics, specialists in Geographic Information Systems (GIS), map collectors, and people who just like maps.

The society publishes The Cartographic Journal twice a year. This is a highly respected and internationally recognised publication. Recent issues have included themes relating to military mapping and a special tribute edition to John Keates, a long-term BCS member who was considered one of the most influential figures in British cartography in the latter part of the 20th century, and who died in 1999.

The newsletter of the society Maplines, published three times a year, continues to keep the membership up to date with the deliberations of Council, reports on the annual symposium and always includes items of news and general cartographic interest.

The Annual Symposium is the society’s main event of the year. It provides the membership with an opportunity to catch up with old friends, make new ones, keep up with developments in modern cartography and view the Corporate Members’ exhibition. The Symposium is also the scene of the society’s annual awards ceremony, at which several awards are presented for excellence in cartography.

The society has three special interest groups currently active. The Map Curators’ Group which promotes the professional development of map curatorship, the Design Group which looks at all aspects of map design, and the recently formed Historical Military Mapping Group which acts as a forum for research into all aspects of military mapping. The Map Curators’ Group is particularly active and arranges lectures, visits map collections and organises training programmes in map librarianship. Its newsletter, Cartographiti, is published up to three times a year.

The Design Group can be described as a “gathering of slightly anarchistic cartographers, academics, software gurus and interested citizens who not only appreciate cartographic design, but also enjoy changing the misconceptions cartography has about itself.” The group holds a number of meetings each year at which the topics discussed range through every facet of design for the mapping process and which commonly include visualisation, perception, expert systems, web design, copyright and software.

The BCS is the UK’s adhering body to the International Cartographic Association. The United Kingdom Committee for Cartography (UKCC) is a committee of the BCS established to represent the UK cartographic community in all matters concerning the relationship of the UK with the International Cartographic Association (ICA) and other appropriate international organisations. Members of the committee are selected from all areas of cartography within the UK including commercial, government and academic.

The society has plans to establish and maintain an audit of all UK cartographic activity and it is also planning to actively promote the subject through events and publications and through generally raising the profile of cartography and cartographers within the UK. In all its activities it represents, and is supported by, its very active, enthusiastic, experienced, innovative and international membership.

Author: Mick Ashworth

Michelin: the maps they are a-changing

The Michelin ManNew maps are always awaited with great anticipation at Stanfords; many become a valuable addition to our stock, and those which fill the few remaining gaps in our coverage are particularly welcomed. Some, it has to be admitted, turn out to be disappointing, and, occasionally, one or two make us wonder why they were published at all and are consigned straight to the wastepaper bin in the buyers’ office.

Most old maps disappear from our shops quietly. Many are replaced by new, updated editions with more eye-catching covers. Others are dropped by their publishers because of lack of demand for them in the current very competitive market and are not missed much. One or two seem to disappear just to open new gaps in our stock and make our life more difficult – or at least that’s how it seems to us!

But it’s not often that a whole map series disappears, and not just any series, but one that, if not quite as old as Stanfords itself, has for decades been among our top bestsellers. Michelin’s maps of France at 1:200,000 were among the first products we had to learn to recognize when we joined Stanfords, faced with constant requests from customers for “the yellow maps of France”.

Michelin started publishing in 1900, just five years after Edouard and André Michelin drove the world’s first car fitted with tyres in a race from Paris to Bordeaux. Their first Guide Michelin, published in a print-run of 35,000 copies, a substantial figure for those days, was offered free to motorists. Hotel guides followed soon, covering various European and North African countries. In 1908 Le Bureau d’Itinéraires Michelin was opened in Paris to develop a forum for exchange of information on choice of routes, road conditions, distances, etc., between the company and motoring enthusiasts. This lead to the publication in the second decade of the last century of Michelin’s first map series at 1:200,000, in a handy concertina format specially designed for motorists, and intended to cover France in 47 maps. Following the territorial changes after World War I, a map of Alsace-Lorraine was added, and in 1921 a map of Corsica completed the series.

The changing face of Michelin - from the 1900s to present day

The success of the French series provided a springboard for expanding Michelin’s coverage to other countries. Perhaps some of our older customers still remember Michelin’s series of 31 maps covering the British Isles at 1:200,000, published in the 1920s. Switzerland, Belgium and Northern Italy came next, leading over the years to Michelin becoming a major cartographic publisher with an extensive range of maps, all of which can be found on our website.

The “yellow” maps were for years a benchmark for other publishers to follow and an indispensable aid for anyone planning to spend their holidays “motoring in France”. It was not until Institut Géographique National, France’s equivalent of the Ordnance Survey, decided to expand from providing just topographic coverage of the country to maps aimed at motorist and tourist, with the publication of Série Rouge (now the IGN Regional Series) and Série Verte (now IGN TOP 100), that a serious competitor arrived to challenge Michelin’s supremacy.

Spurred by the competition from the IGN, in the mid-1970s Michelin decided to publish a new series of regional road maps at 1:200,000, using the same cartography as the concertina maps, but covering mainland France in only 17 maps (now changed to a new Michelin Regional Series at scales between 1:250,000 and 1:300,000, and no longer retaining that old, classic Michelin style of cartography). For nearly 30 years the two formats were published side by side, until this spring the older concertina series was withdrawn from sale and replaced by new Michelin Local Maps.

We wish the new Local series success, but many of us here are very sad to see the old concertina maps disappear – they played an important part both in the history of cartographic publishing and in the expansion of tourism in France.

Find out more about the iconic Michelin Man.

Author: Margaret Ross

The story of Gizi Maps

Gizimap

Since 1992 GiziMap seem to have been able to predict exactly what maps the current political affairs required. Read about GiziMap and the maps they produce in the words of the founder herself, Gizella Bassa.

I finished my degree in cartography in 1969 and I have been working in mapmaking ever since. For 17 years I worked for Cartographia Budapest as an editor on map projects for different parts of the world and for five years after that I was team leader on various projects.

Following the political changes I decided to set up a private map publishing company. Until then Hungary had only had a state-owned cartographic survey and setting up a commercial enterprise was a new experience for me and my fellow cartographers.

In 1993 a map of Estonia, the first GiziMap map, was published. Bartholomew in Edinburgh and MapLink in Santa Barbara bought this map and included it in their map series. I had done plenty of surveying and cartographic work but I needed more familiarity with publishing and marketing the products. Among the most educational experiences were the three months I spent at Oregon State University on a scholarship sponsored by the Soros Foundation in 1991 and working with Christian Legind of Folia, Denmark, on the project for a map of Norway which has been reprinted many times.

Following the first edition of our Central Asia map in 1999, we have been dedicating more and more of our time and energies to Asian countries. There is a traditional interest in Asia within Hungarian cartography and geography. While working on our map of Northwest China we studied the maps of Aurel Stein and during the preparation of the Tibet map we rediscovered the work of Sándor Körösi Csoma. Of course we keep up to date with the work of foreign cartographers and read all contemporary travel guides and travel-related literature and spend a large amount of time travelling in the countries and regions we are mapping.

The idea behind my maps is to create accurate and attractive maps, “pictures” of the world

GiziMap is a small group of cartographers but we invite contributions and advice from linguists, geographers, geologists, travel writers and generally people who have travelled extensively around the countries we are working on.

Every year we have a stand at the Frankfurt Book Fair and there we show our new maps and meet our customers. Among them Stanfords plays a very important role. I like the atmosphere of the Stanfords shop and I am always impressed by the large variety of maps it stocks. I am proud to be able to add to this range.

Author: Gizella Bassa

Harvey Maps

Harvey MapsHarvey Map Services have been established for 25 years. They have gained a reputation for creating high quality maps for adventurous recreation. Popular walking and climbing areas throughout the UK are covered in ranges of sheet and route maps at varying scales according to the terrain of the area covered.

Harvey Maps are compiled from original aerial surveys and then field checked by experienced surveyors, hill walkers themselves. All their maps are printed on waterproof paper. The maps are clear and easy to read as well as being a manageable size. Continue reading Harvey Maps

The Mapping of the Indian Continent

George EverestThe mapping of India is a tale that touches all strands of culture, history, science and politics ensuring that one cannot help but be fascinated. The feats and determination of the surveyors astounded me when I first undertook the study of cartography and their effort is entwined with our need for understanding our planet as well as the desire for ownership.

The first known map of the Indian subcontinent was created as early as the third century BC. Drawn by Eratosthenes the map was based upon a mix of information from Alexander’s invasion, hearsay and myth. Little wonder that this was improved upon by the great Ptolemy, in the second century AD, who recognised the existence of the Himalayas and the Ganges and, incredibly, whose map was used until the 16th-17th century. Subsequent maps were produced through measured routes and astronomical calculations, but it was only when Arthur Wellesley (later to become the Duke of Wellington) destroyed the Tipu Sultan and took control of Mysore for the East India Company that accurate land surveys of India were undertaken. The resulting maps were to be used as tools for military intelligence as well as establishing effective trade routes and centres for imperial commerce

Wellesley had brought to India Captain William Lambton, who was to produce one of the most extraordinary feats of surveying, the creation of the Great Arc of India. The Great Arc was the longest measurement of the Earth’s surface ever undertaken, one of 1,600 miles, with the dual purpose of mapping India and measuring the curvature of the Earth.

Lambton’s extraordinary skills were honed in America. He was an ensign in the 33rd Regiment of Foot when they were called to fight in the American War of Independence. Taken prisoner almost immediately, he was to survey and delineate the boundary between British Canada and the USA. His surveying techniques were inspired by William Roy of the Ordnance Survey and the Cassinis in France.

The survey, begun in 1800, was based upon triangulation. In simplistic terms, a baseline is accurately measured and the angles of the triangle are calculated by sighting a point with a theodolite. Then one side of the calculated measurements of the first triangle is used as the base line for the next and so on. The end result is a web of triangles, the size of which can vary depending on where one can sight to. This, however, is complicated by the fact that the earth is uneven and round; angles of any triangle on this surface do not add to 180 degrees so spherical excess has to be calculated and removed. To make things worse the earth is not truly round, shaped more like a grapefruit (or more accurately, an oblate spheroid). The aim of Lambton’s Great Arc was to enable the accurate measurement of the earth and the accurate calculation of the spherical excess. His Arc was created as a series of triangles that progressively moved towards the Himalayas.

Lambton never saw the conclusion of his master plan, the Arc took nearly fifty years and many lives as the Arc progressed through malarial and typhoid ridden territory. Lambton died in central India in 1821 (or 1823 according to some sources), halfway through his Arc, so the Arc was to be completed by his Welsh assistant, the man who was to give his name to the highest point on Earth, George Everest.

The tale of Everest’s obsession with detail and mathematical accuracy as well as Lambton’s undertaking of the Great Arc is documented in the book of the same title, The Great Arc by John Keay. The book provides the background to the two extraordinary men as well as the hardship they and their surveyors endured to achieve this incredible feat. For anyone with an interest in surveying, cartographic achievement and monumental effort, the book is an essential read. The book also documents the impact cultural differences had upon the survey as well as some of the more spurious scientific ideas of the 19th century.

Unfortunately, Everest must turn in his grave every time the mountain’s name is mentioned. According to Keay, his name was pronounced as Eve-rest, not Ever-est, and he would have passionately disliked any mispronunciation of his family name.

Author: Donna Wright

The European Discovery of the Pacific

The European Discovery of the PacificIt is a fascinating fact of cartographic history that the first world map to name the new continent of America was also the first to illustrate the existence of the Pacific Ocean. What’s more, there is a mystery surrounding the origins of this remarkable map produced by Martin Waldseemuller in 1507: how did he come to represent the Pacific on his map a full decade before any European had actually seen the ocean?

Here we are honoured to reproduce an exclusive abridged version of a lecture on this mystery given by cartographic historian Peter Whitfield at the British Library that coincided with their exhibition Lie of the Land – the secret life of maps (27 July 2001 – 7 April 2002).

The European Discovery of the Pacific – A Cartographic Mystery

Keats’ well-known poem Much have I travelled in the realms of gold ends with the lines:

“Like stout Cortes when, with eagle eyes,
He stared at the Pacific, and all his men
Looked at each other with a wild surmise,
Silent upon a peak in Darien.”

These lines commemorate a milestone in the history of exploration – the first European sighting of the Pacific Ocean. Keats had got his facts wrong of course, for it was not Hernan Cortes but another Spanish conquistador Vasco Nunez de Balboa, who saw the ocean. That moment on September 25, 1513 has certainly still entered the history books, when Balbao, in the course of his journey across the isthmus of Panama, first sighted a great sea far away to the south. Two days after the sighting, he and his men reached the coast and waded into its waters, claiming possession of it for Spain. Balboa met a bloody end in 1519, but news of his discovery had already spread to Europe, and had revived hopes of finding a westward route to the Indies. With this aim Magellan set sail in September 1519, and of course he succeeded, spending 100 terrible days sailing across some 6,000 miles of empty ocean from the Magellan Strait to make his landfall in Guam. Magellan met a tragic and unnecessary death in a brawl on one of the Philippine islands, but the survivors of his crew arrived back in Spain in September 1522 with the Pacific now firmly placed upon the world map, so named by them for its calmness and absence of storms.

Martin Waldseemuller cartographer of the 1507 map

So what is going on here? No other map of this period shows such an ocean, and it was universally believed that the lands discovered in the western Atlantic by Columbus and the other navigators were actually the coasts of Asia. This of course was what the navigators in the age of discovery had set out to find – a western sea-route to the Indies and China. All other maps of this period depict the American discoveries as part of Asia, and they place the names Asia, or China, or Tibet and so on upon them. No European text of this period, no geographical description of the world, mentions an ocean west of America, so what is the background to this unique map? Who was Martin Waldseemuller? Where did he get his data from, and what was his intention?

We know little more than the bare outline of Waldseemuller’s life and work. He was born near Freiburg in the southern Black Forest around 1470. By 1515 Waldseemuller had become a leading member of an intellectual circle in St Die in Lorraine. This group was particularly interested in the sciences of geography and mapmaking, and they acquired books and maps concerning the new discoveries across the Atlantic from Spain and Italy. The results of Waldseemuller’s researches were published in 1507 in four parts:

  1. The world map which we are discussing: a very large map (2.3 x 1.3m) printed from 12 separate woodblocks – in fact it was the largest map ever printed to that date.
  2. The gores (i.e. oval printed sections) of a small world globe.
  3. A book entitled Cosmographia Introductio, an elementary treatise on mapmaking and geography.
  4. An account of the four Atlantic voyages undertaken by the Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci .

Waldseemuller's Map of the World, 1507

Now the mention of Vespucci brings us back to the title of the 1507 map which is printed along the bottom in bold letters: Universalis cosmographia secundum Ptolemaei traditionem et Americi Vespucci aliorumque lustrationes – “A map of the whole world according to the teaching (tradition) of Ptolemy and of Amerigo Vespucci and of other surveyors” (lustro means to go round, to traverse, to scan or to survey). Ptolemy was of course the greatest geographer of the classical period, whose description of the world, composed in the second century AD, had been rediscovered by scholars and scientists in the European Renaissance. The inset picture at the top of the map clearly symbolises the role of Ptolemy as geographer of the old world, counterbalanced by Vespucci as geographer of the new world. This very exalted view of Vespucci’s status is confirmed by a most important passage from the text of the book Cosmographia Introductio, where Waldseemuller writes:
Now these parts of the earth [i.e. the three continents Europe, Asia and Africa which he has been discussing] have been extensively explored, but now a fourth part has been discovered by Amerigo Vespucci…I see no reason why any one should justly object to calling this part Amerige, that is the land of Amerigo, or America, after Amerigo, its discoverer, a man of great and proven ability. Its position and the customs of its inhabitants may be clearly understood from the four voyages of Amerigo which are published herewith.

And we can see that Waldseemuller followed up his own suggestion by writing the word America in the middle of South America both on his large map and on the map drawn for the small globe.

This feature on the map has, of course, received massive attention, and the map has been referred to as “the birth-certificate of America”, and this historic feature has to a large extent overshadowed other aspects of the map, especially the enigma of the Pacific. Now it is clear that Waldseemuller, a scholar working in eastern France, had no personal knowledge of exploration, of the new world or of the Pacific, and that he must have been dependent on source material from outside. It is also abundantly clear that the major source, the inspiration for all these works of 1507, were the voyages of Amerigo Vespucci, accounts of which Vespucci himself had published. So in the quest for Waldseemuller’s sources, we must now turn to Vespucci.

Vespucci has long been a controversial figure in the history of exploration. Navigational experts have cast doubt on the accuracy of the locations he claimed to have reached, to the extent that of his four claimed voyages, some historians have argued that only two really took place. Our interest centres on Vespucci’s third claimed voyage (which may, in reality, have been his second), and which took place from May 1501 to July 1502 – precisely 500 years ago for those who get excited by anniversaries. On his return, Vespucci published two separate accounts of this voyage in which he claimed that he had sailed along the South American coast down to a latitude of 51 degrees south, which would have brought him to within a few hundred miles of Cape Horn, and virtually to the mouth of the Magellan Strait, through which Magellan was to sail into the Pacific in 1520. On this voyage Vespucci had reconnoitred something approaching 2,000 miles of the Brazilian coastline. It was this experience which convinced Vespucci that these lands in the western Atlantic were not merely islands, but formed a continent in their own right, an entirely new landmass in the map of the world. This was the insight, the great discovery that he publicised on his return.

One of his two publications about this voyage was a pamphlet entitled Mundus Novus – “The New World”. It should be recalled that until this moment Columbus and all his contemporaries had clung stubbornly to the belief that the lands found by the navigators in the western Atlantic were mere islands off the coast of Asia, and that sooner or later a passage through them would be found, which would lead to China and India. In overthrowing this view, Vespucci may be said to have made an intellectual as well as a geographical discovery:
These new regions which I have searched for and discovered, can be called a New World, since our ancestors had no knowledge of them…I have discovered a country in those southern regions that is inhabited by more numerous peoples and animals than in our Europe or Asia or Africa, and in addition I found a more temperate and pleasant climate than in any other region.

Among the thousands of people who read the pamphlet was Martin Waldseemuller, and he was clearly so impressed by it that he embodied Vespucci’s discoveries into his new world map, and elevated Vespucci to the status of patron saint of the New World. Now it is noticeable that neither the Mundus Novus nor any other publications by Vespucci were accompanied by any kind of map. But in that pamphlet he did address these words to his employer, Lorenzo de Medici:
I have resolved, Magnificent Lorenzo, that just as I have given you an account by letter of what happened to me, I shall send you two depictions of the world, made and ordered by my own hand and knowledge: one will be a flat rendering and the other a map of the world in spherical form.

Waldseemuller's 'spherical' map

Vespucci never kept this promise, and he never produced any map of his voyages. But these words suggest that the connection between Waldseemuller and Vespucci may have been closer than that of a writer and his distant admirer. I suggest that the two men must have had some personal contact – they may have corresponded and may even have met during the years 1503 to 1506, and that Vespucci handed over to Waldseemuller the task of making these two depictions of the world which he refers to. I suggest that the explorer gave to the mapmaker all of his memoirs, notes and sketches connected with his voyages, and that the Waldseemuller map of 1507 embodies Vespucci’s view of the world.

Does all this help us with the problem of the Pacific? It might if there was any evidence that Vespucci had communicated to Waldseemuller some exclusive and otherwise unknown information that an ocean existed west of the new world. This would be an obvious inference that we might draw if there had in fact been personal contact between the two men. Unfortunately no shred of evidence in that direction has ever been found. Every surviving document relating to Vespucci and Waldseemuller has been published and carefully studied, but they offer no clue as why the Pacific is given such a decisive form on the 1507 map.

So we have to fall back on speculation, but reasoned speculation. Since Vespucci did not personally see or at least write about a western ocean, where did Waldseemuller get the idea from? I think the clue to the whole problem must lie in the text of Mundus Novus, not in any particular detail, but in the entire character of the New World and its people as they are described. Vespucci presents to us a territory of lush jungle forest, full of parrots and leopards, inhabited by tribes so savage that their very humanity seems in doubt. To understand why this is so important for solving the Pacific mystery, we have to remember that the central impetus behind the European voyages of discovery was to find a new sea-route to India and China. The navigators and the monarchs who sent them were not looking for new lands; they were looking for new routes to lands that were already known to exist. And the great source of that knowledge, the origin and the spur to the entire age of exploration, was the description by Marco Polo of his journey to China.

Marco’ Polo’s narrative first appeared in manuscript around the year 1300, and printed editions appeared from 1477 onwards. It became one of the most popular secular texts of the middle ages, part of Europe’s collective consciousness. It was Marco Polo’s text above all which created the European idea of the east, the idea of the fabled source of spices and silks, the idea of a civilisation more magnificent than any in Europe, with huge cities boasting ornate palaces, large public works such as canals and bridges, ports crammed with shipping, the fields fully cultivated, and the whole country ruled by an all-powerful king whose word was law from the China Sea to the Caspian. This fabulous civilisation was reachable by traversing the Islamic lands of the Middle East, and the deserts of central Asia. Waldseemuller knew this, as did every literate person in Europe. In other words there was nothing here remotely resembling what Vespucci or Columbus or any of the navigators had actually found in central or southern America: there, there were no cities, no palaces, no spices, no silk trade, no Great Khan enthroned in his capital. The Caribbean islands or the Brazilian coast could not possibly be reconciled with the vision of China presented by Marco Polo.

This I think is what lies behind the depiction of the Pacific on the Waldseemuller part: it was a symbolic statement of the separate identity of America. The Brazil described by Vespucci could not possibly be a part of Asia, however remote from China, for it was so different that it had to be a separate and distinct region, and that separation is symbolised geographically by the intervening ocean. One detail on the Waldseemuller map seems to confirm this view quite strongly. Japan – named as Zipangri – was described by Marco Polo as an island whose civilisation was as remarkable as China’s, and it was said to lie about 1,000 miles east of China. Waldseemuller places Japan almost exactly where it should be, but remember that in 1507 no European had ever seen Japan or even approached anywhere near it. So this was theoretical mapmaking – constructing an image of the world from literary sources, which could not be verified, but which in this case happened to be correct. So this surely was behind Waldseemuller’s thinking: he gave in this map the cartographic equivalent to the phrase Mundus Novus. The idea of the western ocean never appeared in print, but it is exactly the kind of idea that might have been suggested in conversations or in letters between Waldseemuller and Vespucci.

The 1507 map was a very influential one, many of its features were copied by other mapmakers, and in particular the name America caught on, partly no doubt because of the similarity of the word itself to the words Asia and Africa.

We find in maps of this period – from 1500 to around 1580 – that two distinct types of world map were circulating. The first kind is the map of the whole world, the “Cosmographia Universalis” where the mapmaker is offering an image of the entire globe. There are no empty spaces, there is a grid of latitude and longitude, and some of the features of the map were inevitably purely theoretical, and not based on firm geographical knowledge. The second type was the world map based on the sea charts of the mariners. This type of map showed the coastlines of the world that had actually been discovered by the European navigators. It did not pretend to be complete, but had instead many empty spaces. It usually showed latitude, but never longitude, and it had no projection, no attempt was made to depict the shape of the globe, and it always stopped well short of both poles. Many atlases of sea-charts from this period, drawn by the same mapmaker, show these two types of world map side by side, in spite of the fairly massive differences between them. These two different images of the world were both valid and meaningful to the people who studied them. One was a conceptual image of the globe, in which ideas could be tried out, so to speak, within an agreed framework. The other was a record of what was actually known, so that on this kind of map, the continents frequently fade away into empty sea.

The mystery of the Waldseemuller world map illustrates the fragility of so much historical knowledge. We think we are sure of certain landmarks in history, such as Balboa and Magellan discovering the Pacific between them, when the Waldseemuller map appears to throw a huge question mark over the whole matter. I still have a feeling that there must be a story behind the Waldseemuller map, a human story about Waldseemuller and his contacts with Vespucci. Nothing is known about Waldseemuller after 1516 – he simply vanishes from history. We do not know where or when he died, but I like to think that before he died, he left his fellow-scholars in St Die and sailed away to find out the truth about the Pacific for himself. Perhaps he did: perhaps he joined Magellan’s fleet which left Spain in 1519, and perhaps he was among the many who perished in the course of that epic voyage across the Pacific. If so, then he would at least have realised that his map of the new world had been correct, and that the ocean that he surmised or invented by a stroke of genius in 1507 was very much a reality after all.

Peter Whitfield is the author of A Universe of Books, The Mapping of the Heavens, The Charting of the Oceans, New Found Lands – Maps in the History of Exploration, Cities of the World: A History in Maps and London: A Life in Maps.

His real claim to fame, however, is that during the 1980s he was a colleague of ours as director of Stanfords and wrote about our history in The Mapmakers – A History of Stanfords. For further information on Peter Whitfield, visit his website: www.wychwoodeditions.co.uk.

Author: Peter Whitfield

The History of ITMB

ITMBITMB Publishing Ltd (International Travel Maps and Books, if you’re not in a hurry) was conceived in the early 1980s from the partnership of an Australian cartographer named Kevin Healey and Jack Joyce, a Canadian map retailer, who were both frustrated at the unimpressive range of maps of Central and South America on the market. At that time, European cartographic publishers apparently expressed little curiosity for that part of the world, as it wasn’t perceived to be of sufficient interest to their market.

Fuelled by ambition, but with little in the way of resources, the dynamic duo planned to remedy the situation step-by-step, and began by self-publishing a two-sheet map of South America in 1985 with some support from the British publisher Bradt. As the struggle progressed they gradually produced more titles covering South American regions over the next few years. By 1991 the three maps of North-East, North-West and Southern South America had been accomplished, and their first country map, Costa Rica, was ready in 1990 to coincide with the upsurge in tourism there. As recognition of their efforts grew, more locations were covered, and now ITMB is one of the largest and most successful map publishing houses in the world. They have over 180 titles in print through the work of several enthusiastic, independent cartographers and joint-venture associates.

If you browse through Stanfords’ web pages for Central and South America you will come across many examples of their work. Their bestselling map at Stanfords is Ecuador, with Costa Rica, Belize, Galapagos and Venezuela also falling in the top 20 bestsellers list. Other titles include Amazon Basin, Argentina, Brazil, Easter Island, Guyana and Uruguay. These attractive maps are usually characterised by the use of elevation tinting to denote topography, extensive detail and the inclusion, to a varying extent, of notes on historical and geographical aspects of the subject area. Not only Latin American countries and cities have been tackled, but also much of Canada, and in particular ITMB’s backyard, the British Columbia region. In more recent years Africa, Central Asia, the Middle East and South East Asia have increasingly come under ITMB’s scrutiny as they extend their gaze further afield for regions inadequately covered for travellers. It’s a tough job, but somebody’s got to do it.

Insight into the world of IGN

IGN LogoIGN is France’s national survey agency, the equivalent of Great Britain’s Ordnance Survey. As the Ordnance Survey was, and as many national Géographical institutes still are, it was originally a department of the army. It became a public institution just before the Armistice of Vichy in 1941.

In its new status one of IGN’s first responsibilities was to set up a network of markers indicating positions on the ground and covering the whole of the French territory. This, the New French Triangulation (NTF), allowed an accurate measurement of the shape of the land. The NTF was complemented by a levelling network that provided improved accuracy in the measurement of altitude. These two networks are still used and maintained today alongside the latest GPS (Global Positioning System) technology.

The first maps available to the public were the Cartes d’Etat-Major (Staff Maps). They kept the name and scale, 1:40,000, they had when IGN was still a department of the army until they were replaced by the 1:50,000 scale series a few decades later.

The years between 1960 and 1985 can be defined as the African Years for IGN as they undertook the mapping of most of the French-speaking countries in Africa.

The ’80s and ’90s saw the ascent of computers and for IGN, the creation of the first database, the BD TOPO© (Topographic Database). The 1:25,000 and 1:50,000 scale series are derived from this database; the 1:100,000 and the 1:250,000 are as well but they are the result of generalisation, which is the removal of detail to increase legibility.

Another 15 databases were created after this first one. Among them, the BD ORTHO© covers part of the French territory with Orthophotographs (aerial photographs in which all distortions are corrected) and the BD ALTI©, which is composed of spot heights regularly spaced out and allows the creation of a model of the ground.

The maintenance of the geodetic and levelling networks and the production of up-to-date topographic maps are IGN’s first concern but the range of its activities is very wide. Based on its 60 years’ experience, IGN has been called upon for projects such as the assessment of historical buildings (measuring subsidence, etc.) or for the building of the Amsterdam underground.

IGN has a formal working group dedicated to researching the meaning and the circulation of placenames that appear in IGN publications. IGN also houses the ENSG (National School of Géographical Science). It is responsible for the training of all of its engineers and technicians and many foreign students and professionals attend its prestigious courses.

The public knows very little about IGN’s wide range of activities but it is the commitment to these activities that guarantees the quality of products such as the immensely popular 1:25,000 maps, the bedrock of IGN.

Stanfords stocks a huge range of IGN maps covering every region of France and to suit every purpose:

Author: Jacob Genelle