This paper analyses the development of a triangulation network in the time of Napoleon I, when, due to imperial expansion, the extension of the existing triangulation network was necessary to extend ...Cassini's original map of France to the newly conquered territories of the French Empire. For this purpose, triangulators had to connect the already existing regional networks with the basic French network, as well as establish completely new ones in regions where they had not existed until then. Connecting various networks into a single chain was not only aimed at improving the accuracy of maps; it was also a clear reflection of a new understanding of territorial sovereignty. This paper examines which networks were established within modern-day northern Italy and maritime Croatia, and how they were mutually harmonized and interconnected, as well as what kind of repercussions this had on the development of mapping and map standardization.
The nineteenth century marked a turning point in the way that European missionary endeavours were mapped. The expansion of missionary societies and their needs brought to the fore the issue of ...systematization and visualization of data related to missionization. The primary aim of maps was not to mark the geographical features of an unknown region but to quantify missionary activity and its distribution in various parts of the world, thus marking a shift in focus from exploration to statistics. This article analyses the production, reception and distribution of mission atlases during the nineteenth century, with a case study of Peter Grundemann's Allgemeiner Missions-Atlas (1867-1871), published by Justus Perthes in Gotha, Germany-the first interdenominational missionary world atlas. The appearance of such an atlas illustrates how Protestant societies spread modern Western concepts of mapping and used professionals in the production and marketing of missionary maps.
Dubrovnik (Ragusa) and Livorno (Leghorn) are two old maritime cities in the Mediterranean whose strong cultural and scientific connections are here explored through the work of Vicko Dimitrije Volčić ...(Vincentius Demetrius Volcius Raguseus). Volčić worked in Livorno and Naples as a maker of portolan charts from 1592 to 1607. His twenty-eight charts known today represent a compendium of knowledge at a time in which intertwined practices and traditions of Dubrovnikʼs, Catalan, Neapolitan, Livornian, Genoese, and Venetian sailors reflected the cultural relations between the East and the West in general. This movement of charts and people through the means of trade, travel, and diplomatic activities formed the basis for cultural and knowledge exchange. Based on archival research of Volčićʼs charts as well as of charts by his contemporaries, this paper aims to identify knowledge exchange flows, cultural influences, and cartographic practices of individual masters and cartographic workshops that Volčić applied while working at the Livorno cartographic workshop.
The evolution, nature and characteristics of boundary mapping in Central and Eastern Europe were distinctive, especially considering the imperial borders of states neighbouring the Ottoman Empire. ...Affected by strong military and geopolitical needs, demarcation maps were not based on cadastres or property mapping undertaken by civil authorities but exclusively on military mapping. The maps were a part of peace treaties with the Ottoman Empire, which gave them the power of legal documents. Moreover, boundary maps constituted an important tool in defending state sovereignty and subsequently in the state- and nation-building processes. In this article I analyse how countries bordering the Ottoman Empire made their demarcation maps, which strategies they applied, what level of cooperation they had with Ottoman cartographers, what cartographic conventions they met, and how these maps were received at the Ottoman court. I argue that boundary mapping was the key driver of territorial statehood in the region.
The process of political and territorial unification of the Kingdom of Italy (1860) and Austria-Hungary (1867) highlighted the issues of territoriality both on land and at sea. As a part of that ...effort, a need of maritime survey of the Adriatic conducted by the joint forces of the Austro-Hungarian and Italian hydrographic offices appeared. The purpose of this endeavour was to enable the production of modern charts based on a comprehensive survey covering the whole sea surface area, from coast to coast. Under the supervision of Commander Tobias Ritter von Oesterreicher and Counter-Admiral Duke Antonio Imbert, the survey started in 1866 and, by the end of 1873, resulted in a general chart of the Adriatic, 4 course charts of the Adriatic Sea, 55 coastal charts as well as number of harbour plans. This paper presents an analysis of the course of the survey, its products as well as its impact on the subsequent cartography of the Adriatic Sea.
This paper analyzes the methods and processes of the compilation of the British/US topographic maps of the Balkans created for the purpose of military operations during World War II. It presents the ...challenges that the cartographers of the British Geographical Section of the General Staff and the US Army Map Service faced during the compilation of their editions of the map of the Balkans. It discusses how they managed to homogenize different mathematical base data and geographical contents from the numerous source maps, how they sorted out the complications of name spellings, how they brought the maps up to date to make them reliable, and which specific features were maintained in some of the sheets of the topographic map series for the Balkans.
In this paper, we analyse the nineteenth-century Ottoman cartographic activities and map production in the European parts of their empire. Already weakened by centuries of wars, the Ottoman Empire, ...in its late phase of territorial regression, had to find a way to compensate the absence of its own mapping activities. That especially came to the fore when the interest of the Ottoman administration in the mapping of the European part of its empire was stimulated by the requirements of its military operations during the Russo-Turkish Wars, as well as by the consequent geopolitical changes that occurred with the independence of certain parts of the empire (Greece, Wallachia and Moldavia, Serbia, Montenegro, and Bulgaria). The solution was found in translating European, mostly Austrian and Russian, topographic maps into the Ottoman Turkish language. This practice resulted in the production of topographic maps that met the military needs of the Ottoman army, but also in a gradual transfer of the Western science and cartographic practice to the Ottoman culture.
The paper presents a comparative analysis of the map of Dalmatia by Johannes Janssonius and maps by his contemporaries. Janssonius's cartographical models and the sources of the printed text ...accompanying his map are identified. The roles of Croatian cartographers and Venetian and Ottoman reports dealing with the border are uncovered. The importance of Janssonius's map in disseminating knowledge about the little-known geography and history of Dalmatia, and the ways in which the map influenced perception of that country in the Ottoman Empire borderlands in general, are assessed.
At the beginning of the nineteenth century, the Adriatic was still insufficiently explored sea. The Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815), which in 1806 resulted in a territorial expansion of the French Empire ...to the eastern Adriatic (formerly part of the Austrian Empire), highlighted the issues of territorial sovereignty both on land and at sea, triggering the first hydrographic survey of the Adriatic. Napoleon Bonaparte, whose military operations were conducted precisely at sea, hired Charles François Beautemps-Beaupré, his best hydrographer, to conduct a hydrographic survey of the eastern coasts of the Adriatic. Conducted in the period 1806–1809, the survey resulted in the first modern hydrographic charts of the Adriatic that were accompanied by a hydrographic report, containing an analysis of its currents, winds, tides, and geomagnetism. Beautemps-Beaupré’s campaign was the first scientifically based survey of the Adriatic whose charts and the attached report represented a shift towards an all-encompassing convention of maritime cartography. It enhanced both the sovereignty over the newly acquired sea and the insight into the maritime theatre of the Napoleonic Wars, thus confirming a strong union between political power and science. The aim of the article is to show why the French survey was a turning-point in geographical knowledge on Adriatic and how French imperialism affected the knowledge on martime geography of the Adriatic Sea.
•Examines how state-sponsored marine science was used as a tool in French imperialism.•Claims Beautemps-Beaupré’s survey of Adriatic Sea as the first scientifically based survey of Adriatic Sea.•Highlights innovations in surveying and cartography.•Shows modernization of maritime charting and standardization of hydrographic practice.•Places territory as major scientific subject of observation to support expansionism.
