by Evangelos Livieratos

The Charta of Greece (Map of Greece) by Rigas Velestinlis (1757-1798) printed in Vienna in 1796 and 1797 is a remarkable case in the modern history of maps: Although the aspects of this twelve-sheet map, a monument of the Greek national resurgence, concerning its historic, ideological, political, revolutionary, literary and full of symbolic messages were more or less widely analyzed, mainly in Greek language, very little has been done up to now for the investigation of this great map’s purely cartographic content, from the stand point of the science and technology of Cartography. Many issues associated to the cartographic analysis of Charta remain still open as it is e.g. the geographic placement of the map-framing (the geographic window of the map), the proper georeferencing of the map, the proper union of the map-sheets in a unique two by two metres map, the compatibility of the coastline and of the geometric content with other maps taken as standards, the study of scale variation, the analysis of its projective properties, its deformation analysis, the geometric placement and reference of Charta’s thematic elements (toponyms, verbal elements, symbols, images etc.) as well as a number of other issues related to the theory and practice of scientific and technological cartography.

In the last years, the revolutionary development of digital technologies, as applied in Cartography’s mainstream, allow a broader and deeper approach to a great number of topics related to the old (historical) maps. Thus, Rigas Charta gains a new and attractive research interest which is coming to refresh and enrich the up to now historic and literary production about this top cartographic work of Greek Enlightenment.

In this paper the cartographic research on Charta is presented with the use of modern tools of map analysis with the use of digital technologies for the study and interpretation of the geometric and thematic map-content. In addition an attempt is made for the first time to approach the technical and practical procedures possibly followed by Rigas Velestinlis in designing his Charta.

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