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- All the World within a circle……… Some unusual World Maps on a Single Polar Projection
All the World within a circle……… Some unusual World Maps on a Single Polar Projection
- By Shirley, Rodney
- Published 1 March 1980
- Maps
- Unrated
Shirley, Rodney
RODNEY SHIRLEY was educated at Stowe School and at the Universities of Cambridge (MA) and Harvard (MBA). His main career has been in business but for many years he has been a collector and historian of early maps and associated decorative titlepages. He is past president and a current council member of the International Map Collectors' Society. His book The Mapping of the World: Early Printed World Maps 1472-1700 is a standard reference work, as are his two books on the early maps of the British Isles.
In 2004 he published a two-volume work Maps in the Atlases of the British Library c.850 – 1800 AD, and in 2009 a book with many colour plates titled Courtiers and Cannibals, Angels and Amazons: the Art of the Decorative Cartographic Titlepage. Rodney lives in Buckingham and is married with three grown-up children.
The maps described in this article span two hundred years of cartographic development starting in the sixteenth century. During this time map makers experimented with a variety of map projections including the polar projection as described here. Rodney Shirley, who recently became a Senior Civil Servant in London, studies maps in his spare time and what began as mere interest has increased to become a totally absorbing hobby in which he is now an acknowledged expert. He has just finished a full scale carlo-bibliography of printed world maps which it is hoped will be published later this year. Some of the maps noted in his article are extremely large, and so we have illustrated certain parts only rather than attempt to reduce the whole map photographically and lose much of the decorative engraving.
There are enough difficulties, so it might be thought, confronting map-makers in trying to portray the world on one of the more customary projections, whether conical, oval, cordiform, cylindrical (as Mercator's) or just as twin hemispheres. Nearly all references dealing with map projections describe the processes of compromise and trial leading to the choice of any particular projection for a specific purpose. [1] Attempts to encompass the whole world within a single circumference run into cumulative problems because of the increasing distortion accepted.
Peter Apian, in his Cosmographicus Liber of 1524 introduced one of the first circular maps of the world. The separation of the Americas, and the diminutive size of North America, are features derived from Waldseemuller. Nordenskibld, in his Facsimile Atlas, shows that Apian's map is in fact a very accurate representation of a stereographic net. (By courtesy of Rodney W. Shirley.)
In spite of these disadvantages a number of interesting world maps on a single polar projection are known. This article briefly describes some of them which were printed up to the early eighteenth century. Several of these maps, notably those by Postel, Pisani, Monte and Doncker-Robyn are magnificent multisheet maps which are relatively unknown and deserving of larger reproduction and more thorough study than can be given here.
The first printed conception of a polar projection seems to have appeared in Gregor Reisch's Margarita Philosophica of 1512. This work, first published in 1503, was a kind of popular handbook of moral and natural philosophy much read by university students. One of Reisch's diagrams is reproduced by Nordenskiöld [2] with the outline of land masses in the northern hemisphere roughly sketched in. Peter Apian, the German cartographer, prepared a small circular map showing all the world as far as 25° south to accompany his Cosmographicus Liber of 1524. In accord with explorers' reports, South America is shown separated from a diminutive North America by a broad sea channel. Apian's map was reprinted in the many later editions of his work; Nordenskiöld also gives a reproduction. [3]
Postel's woodcut map of 1581 is too large to show in rts entirety. The section illustrated shows North America, with a reversed-image South America appended, as if it were viewed from the inside of a sphere. The Straits of Magellan are called Fretum Martini Bohemi by Postel: his cartouches are composed of complex mechanical and geometric figures such as gears and crankshafts and solid polyhedra. (By courtesy of the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris.)
Throughout the sixteenth century several different forms of world map projection were experimented with, some configurations being more distinguished for their artistic elegance than their geographical usefulness. The unique large woodcut by the Frenchman Guillaume Postel combines both decorative and cartographic interest. Measuring 120 x 90cms., it is entitled Polo Aptata Nova Charta Universi Auth. Cuil. °Postello and was first issued in Paris in 1581. It was re-issued in 1589 but the only surviving copy is an impression of 1621 which is preserved in the Bibliotheque Service Historique de la Marine. The southern hemisphere is divided into two reduced-scale quarters and placed mirror-image in the top corners. Postel's map is a tour-de-force, with geographical information in great detail and surrounded by complex and striking decoration. It strongly influenced De Jode and others of the late sixteenth century Antwerp school [4] A much reduced copy was published by Severt in 1590 and 1598. [5]
There are enough difficulties, so it might be thought, confronting map-makers in trying to portray the world on one of the more customary projections, whether conical, oval, cordiform, cylindrical (as Mercator's) or just as twin hemispheres. Nearly all references dealing with map projections describe the processes of compromise and trial leading to the choice of any particular projection for a specific purpose. [1] Attempts to encompass the whole world within a single circumference run into cumulative problems because of the increasing distortion accepted.
Peter Apian, in his Cosmographicus Liber of 1524 introduced one of the first circular maps of the world. The separation of the Americas, and the diminutive size of North America, are features derived from Waldseemuller. Nordenskibld, in his Facsimile Atlas, shows that Apian's map is in fact a very accurate representation of a stereographic net. (By courtesy of Rodney W. Shirley.)
In spite of these disadvantages a number of interesting world maps on a single polar projection are known. This article briefly describes some of them which were printed up to the early eighteenth century. Several of these maps, notably those by Postel, Pisani, Monte and Doncker-Robyn are magnificent multisheet maps which are relatively unknown and deserving of larger reproduction and more thorough study than can be given here.
The first printed conception of a polar projection seems to have appeared in Gregor Reisch's Margarita Philosophica of 1512. This work, first published in 1503, was a kind of popular handbook of moral and natural philosophy much read by university students. One of Reisch's diagrams is reproduced by Nordenskiöld [2] with the outline of land masses in the northern hemisphere roughly sketched in. Peter Apian, the German cartographer, prepared a small circular map showing all the world as far as 25° south to accompany his Cosmographicus Liber of 1524. In accord with explorers' reports, South America is shown separated from a diminutive North America by a broad sea channel. Apian's map was reprinted in the many later editions of his work; Nordenskiöld also gives a reproduction. [3]
Postel's woodcut map of 1581 is too large to show in rts entirety. The section illustrated shows North America, with a reversed-image South America appended, as if it were viewed from the inside of a sphere. The Straits of Magellan are called Fretum Martini Bohemi by Postel: his cartouches are composed of complex mechanical and geometric figures such as gears and crankshafts and solid polyhedra. (By courtesy of the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris.)
Throughout the sixteenth century several different forms of world map projection were experimented with, some configurations being more distinguished for their artistic elegance than their geographical usefulness. The unique large woodcut by the Frenchman Guillaume Postel combines both decorative and cartographic interest. Measuring 120 x 90cms., it is entitled Polo Aptata Nova Charta Universi Auth. Cuil. °Postello and was first issued in Paris in 1581. It was re-issued in 1589 but the only surviving copy is an impression of 1621 which is preserved in the Bibliotheque Service Historique de la Marine. The southern hemisphere is divided into two reduced-scale quarters and placed mirror-image in the top corners. Postel's map is a tour-de-force, with geographical information in great detail and surrounded by complex and striking decoration. It strongly influenced De Jode and others of the late sixteenth century Antwerp school [4] A much reduced copy was published by Severt in 1590 and 1598. [5]
