Vol 6 No 1: Tracing circulations: The case of the Mercator-Hondius atlas (1613)https://www.doria.fi:443/handle/10024/1365032024-03-28T17:11:13Z2024-03-28T17:11:13ZCartographer’s experience of time in the Mercator-Hondius Atlas (1606, 1613)Tunturi, Jannehttps://www.doria.fi:443/handle/10024/1365152017-09-23T05:18:46Z2017-06-19T10:53:45ZCartographer’s experience of time in the Mercator-Hondius Atlas (1606, 1613)
Tunturi, Janne
This article analyses the articulations of temporality in the Mercator-Hondius Atlas. Firstly, the atlas reflects the sense of the past as the cartographers had to assess the information included in ancient texts in relation to modern testimonies. Secondly, Hondius had to take into account the worldview provided by the explorers in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Hence the experience of time articulated in the Mercator-Hondius Atlas reflected not only the cartographers’ ideas of the Dutch cartographic industry but also directed the making of the atlas.
Janne Tunturi, University of Turku
Janne Tunturi works as a university lecturer in the Department of European and World History at the University of Turku. Tunturi has written and taught on the history of historical thought in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. He has also published articles and edited works on classical reception studies, on space and spatiality and on book history.
2017-06-19T10:53:45ZLanguage choice, language alternation and code-switching in the Mercator-Hondius AtlasMäkilähde, Aleksihttps://www.doria.fi:443/handle/10024/1365132017-09-23T05:18:44Z2017-06-19T10:48:46ZLanguage choice, language alternation and code-switching in the Mercator-Hondius Atlas
Mäkilähde, Aleksi
The atlas of Gerardus Mercator (Gerard de Cremer), or the Atlas sive cosmographicae meditationes de fabrica mundi et fabricati figura, is one of first modern atlases and one of the most famous of those compiled in the Netherlands. The first (unfinished) edition was published in 1595, but the copperplates were later acquired by Jodocus Hondius (Joost de Hondt) and his business associates. The revised Mercator-Hondius Atlas was published for the first time in 1606 with added maps and texts. The texts printed on verso of the maps were written by Petrus Montanus (Pieter van den Berg), who was a brother-in-law of Hondius and a Latin teacher. Many subsequent editions of the atlas were produced in the years that followed. The first editions were in Latin, but versions in European vernaculars such as French, German and Italian were produced later as well.
The present article focuses on the multilingual nature of the Mercator-Hondius Atlas (1613, editio quarta) by discussing language choice, language alternation and code-switching patterns in different parts of the atlas. The dominant language of the descriptive texts is Latin, but there are also switches into many other languages, including Greek (written in Greek script) and several vernaculars. Furthermore, the map pages tend to indicate the names of different types of area (e.g. cities, seas, and oceans) in different languages. The aim of the present article is to provide a preliminary exploration of the possibilities of approaching the atlas with the aid of concepts and ideas derived from modern code-switching studies. I demonstrate how these concepts can be used to describe the language choice patterns in the text and discuss some of the challenges the data poses for a linguistic approach.
Aleksi Mäkilähde, University of Turku
Aleksi Mäkilähde (MA) is a doctoral candidate at the Department of English, University of Turku. His PhD project focuses on language choice and code-switching in early modern English school drama, and his fields of interest include pragmatics and historical linguistics.
2017-06-19T10:48:46ZThe biography of a book: the Turku copy of the 1613 Mercator-Hondius AtlasVan Impe, StevenVarila, Mari-Liisahttps://www.doria.fi:443/handle/10024/1365082017-09-23T05:18:43Z2017-06-19T10:32:22ZThe biography of a book: the Turku copy of the 1613 Mercator-Hondius Atlas
Van Impe, Steven; Varila, Mari-Liisa
In this article we look at the printing and publishing history of the 1613 edition of the Mercator-Hondius Atlas. Our main focus is on the editions published by the Hondius family in the early seventeenth century. We take a closer look at the 1613 Latin edition, focusing on one specific, previously unrecorded copy currently held by the Donner Institute in Turku. We relate our findings to the more general issues concerning the production, context and history of the atlas.
Steven Van Impe, Hendrik Conscience Heritage Library
Steven Van Impe is a Master in History (Ghent University) and holds a postgraduate degree in Library and Information Science (Antwerp University). He worked as a bibliographer on the Short Title Catalogus Vlaanderen (STCV) project before becoming curator of old books and manuscripts at the Hendrik Conscience Library in 2006. In 2015 he curated the exhibition The Seven Seas on early modern maritime cartography. In his spare time he is working on a PhD on newspapers in Antwerp in the eighteenth century.
Mari-Liisa Varila, University of Turku
Mari-Liisa Varila (MA, English) is a doctoral candidate at the Department of English, University of Turku. In her dissertation she examines a group of three English manuscripts containing scientific texts, with a special focus on the interaction between manuscript and print culture in early sixteenth-century England. Her research interests include manuscript studies, book history, English historical linguistics and textual scholarship.
2017-06-19T10:32:22ZKnowing and decorating the world: illustrations and textual descriptions in the maps of the fourth edition of the Mercator-Hondius Atlas (1613)Latva, OttoSkurnik, Johannahttps://www.doria.fi:443/handle/10024/1365072017-09-23T05:18:42Z2017-06-19T10:27:45ZKnowing and decorating the world: illustrations and textual descriptions in the maps of the fourth edition of the Mercator-Hondius Atlas (1613)
Latva, Otto; Skurnik, Johanna
This article analyses the Mercator-Hondius Atlas maps in the context of constructing knowledge of the world. In what follows, we analyse the elements of continental geographies and ocean spaces on the maps presented in the atlas. We take as our starting point the tension between empirical and theoretical knowledge and examine the changes occurring in the ways of representing land and sea on atlas maps which are evident in the Mercator-Hondius Atlas. Consequently, we investigate how the world was represented through information in pictorial and textual form. We argue that the maps in the Mercator-Hondius Atlas make explicit not only the multiple cartographical traditions and the layered nature of atlases as artefacts. They also exemplify the various coexisting functions of the atlas.
Otto Latva, University of Turku
MA Otto Latva is a PhD candidate in Cultural History at the University of Turku. In his thesis Latva studies perceptions and attitudes towards the deep sea dwelling squid, the giant squid, in western culture from the late eighteenth century to the turn of the twentieth century. His research interests includes history of animals, history of nat-ural sciences and the oceanic research from the perspective of cultural history.
Johanna Emilia Skurnik, University of Turku
MA Johanna Skurnik is a PhD candidate in European and World History at the University of Turku. Her research interests are history of knowledge, history of cartography and historical geography. In her thesis Skurnik examines British geographies of colonial Australia in the mid-nineteenth century.
2017-06-19T10:27:45Z