16th Century Map of the World
In James Cowan’s “A Mapmaker’s Dream,” a 16th century roman monk vicariously travels the world without actually leaving the confines of his monastery. The monk, named Fra Mauro, learns of the world through stories told by a variety of travelers. With his newly acquired perception of the world, Fra sets out to chart the lands that were, at that time, still being discovered. From these stories, Fra’s “perfect map,” or mappi mundi as he called it, would be constructed. In this process, the boundaries of Fra’s world would be pushed to the limit.
Being celibate from exposure to the world around him, Fra spread word that he would be building a map of the new world. Quick response from seasoned explorers from all corners of the world would soon become available to him as many travelers would readily unburden themselves of the new and strange things they saw. These stories of the uncharted lands were told by a variety of people. With vivid descriptions of the people visiting him, Fra helps to put an excellent image of his visitors into the reader’s head. He describes one sailor as still having sea salt hanging in his beard, while describing a merchant as bone-weary and dusty from his merchant’s trail. The stories he learns from these men also paint a great mental image as to what Fra is thinking and feeling.
From these rendezvous with travelers, the beginning of a geographical map is built, but unlike the conventional mapmakers of the time, Fra was not only interested in the shape of lands and waters, but also in the feeling these places created in the storyteller. Other than mountains, canals, and valleys, Fra Mauro learns about the culture, peculiarities, and feelings of the locations that the travelers visited. Though his sources are not of highest reliability, they are reflective of the perception of a typical 16th century person. Two of his most interesting stories are the story of the essence of the mummy princess that he discusses with the scholar and the tale of the one-eyed, one-armed Cyclopedes that he learns from the Franciscan monk. Fra also delves into the renaissance occurring between these same European countries and what is today the Americas. This is how Fra Mauro’s perception of the world was built – through second hand stories told to him.
During the height of the British Empire—a time of exploration, discovery and colonization—lower class citizens of Great Britain were suffering under the weight of upper-class oppression. Many of these farmers, braziers, blacksmiths and etcetera passed the long arduous hours of manual labor by daydreaming of freedom, adventure, excitement and most of all landownership in the New World. The class system of eighteenth century England was rigid and restrictive to upward mobility; whereas, the New World was rumored to be a place where a man of any stripe could establish himself. Amongst these tired and sweaty daydreamers, a handful of ambitious men were not content to simply dream. These few courageous young lads were willing to take the risks of sea travel to find out for themselves if the rumors were true. Thus, the men made their arrangements and braved the howling gales and icy waters of the North Atlantic in search of their destiny. Joseph Howse was amongst the men who chased their dreams through the rigorous demands of the inhospitable landscape of Prince Rupert’s Land. Howse may have shared their enthusiasm about what lay ahead in the New World, but he did not share their motives.
society's approval, etc. He is one of the few who tries to fight the power
Do you ever have one of those days when you remember your parents taking away all of your baseball cards or all of your comic books because you got a bad grade in one of your classes? You feel a little depressed and your priced possession has been stolen. This event is the same as August Wilson’s, The Piano Lesson. The story is about a sibling rivalry, Boy Willie Charles against Berniece Charles, regarding an antique, family inherited piano. Boy Willie wants to sell the piano in order to buy the same Mississippi land that his family had worked as slaves. However, Berniece, who has the piano, declines Boy Willie’s request to sell the piano because it is a reminder of the history that is their family heritage. She believes that the piano is more consequential than “hard cash” Boy Willie wants. Based on this idea, one might consider that Berniece is more ethical than Boy Willie.
Of the lessons of this course, the distinction made between story and situation will be the most important legacy in my writing. I learned a great travel essay cannot be merely its situation: its place, time, and action. It requires a story, the reader’s internal “journey of discovery.” While the importance of establishing home, of balancing summary and scene, and other lessons impacted my writing, this assertion at least in my estimation the core argument of the course.
got the best of him and thus he declared war on Israel and started off
Howe, Helen, and Robert T. Howe. A World History: Ancient and Medieval Worlds. Volume 1. White Plains, NY: Longman, 1992. 533.
...s out and tells Romeo to his face. “Love moderately” (2. 5. 9) are the two words of advice he gives him and ends there because he knows that those two words are very powerful. He could tell that there was going to be something bad happening. Fate was huge here because he saw what they were thinking and needed to stop them, but their decisions were the death of them in the end.
us on an imaginary voyage; one through the amazing journeys of a single man, one
Travel writing is known as a form of writing which teaches global history. This explains the history of not only the world, but of the...
In his first voyage in 1492, when Christopher Columbus set out to search for Asia, he ended up landing in America on a small island in the Caribbean Sea, which he confidently thought was Asia. He then made several other voyages to the New World in search for riches, thinking that he was exploring an already explored land, but he had found the greatest riches of them all, undiscovered land, America. This shows that when one sets out on a mission, they face different challenges on the journey but in the end, achieve more than what they planned on achieving. The novel The Alchemist, by Paulo Coelho, and the novel Life of Pi, by Yann Martel, both describe two journeys where the characters achieve more when they learn about life, survival and patience, by understanding religion, tackling their fears, associating with nature, and encountering other characters from whom they learn something. The former is about a young shepherd named Santiago, who has a recurring dream of a treasure in Egypt, for which he makes a journey to achieve his “Personal Legend” by the help of a man who claims to be...
From studying multiple artifacts from the 15th century in Italy, there have been significant acronyms within Northern Europe, and Italy bases off different altarpieces that have a gland into solving the puzzle pieces from various paintings that are linked with spiritual attributes in Christianity. In northern Europe, we come to see the paintings within the altarpiece are more eccentric than Italy, and have high quality in the 3D dimensional aspect so the viewer can visualize themselves as part of the painting itself.
Historical geographer JB Harley wrote an essay on Map Deconstruction in 1989, in which Harley argues that a map is more than just a geographical representation of an area, his theory is that we need to look at a map not just as a geographical image but in its entire context. Harley points out that by an examination of the social structures that have influenced map making, that we may gain more knowledge about the world. The maps social construction is made from debate about what it should show. Harley broke away from the traditional argument about maps and examined the biases that govern the map and the map makers, by looking at what the maps included or excluded. Harley’s “basic argument within this essay is that we should encourage an epistemological shift in the way we interpret the nature of cartography.” Therefore Harley’s aim within his essay on ‘Deconstructing the Map’ was to break down the assumed ideas of a map being a purely scientific creation.
Although The Garden of Earthly Delights, a triptych painted by the Netherlandish master Hieronymus Bosch on the turn of the 15th century, and the Psalter map, a 1262 mappa mundi found in a collection of psalms (hence the name Psalter) may not seem to have much in common, perhaps their biggest similarity is their goal: a representation of the world, an ambition that is all the more visible in its large scope. In this analysis, I will analyse and then compare the visual elements of both works and also their purpose and context of their creation, although this will likely be to a limited extent as there is scarce information on both the Psalter map and Bosch’s triptych.
The Hereford World Map is the world’s oldest surviving map of the world; it was made in 1300, during the beginning of the Renaissance in Europe. There was a wider range of influences on mapping during the later medieval period. With an increase in exploration, Europe began to evolve into an international continent; widespread travel can be seen by the influences of the Islamic world on architecture. While map making in China had flourished in the 11th C, mapping was beginning to evolve in Europe. By around 1400 there was a peak in map making in Europe. There is evidence of the influence of Roman mapping on medieval maps in Europe. The Medieval world maps but together information from Roman sources to make the world maps in the middle ages known as the mappa mundi, meaning cloth of the world. These were cloth maps, and the name mappa mundi was widely used for them. These world maps were understood by historians as an attempt to show where countries were located, quite often they were not just geographical representations but they were also stories of the world. As knowledge of map making increased during the Renaissance, was a move for wider representations of information on maps. The map became a source of information on the animals and history of the different countries. This can be seen in The Hereford World Map, a map that gives a geometrical representation of the locations of the known countries of the world and also acted as an encyclopaedia of information on various types of animals and where in the world they came from.
Yiannopoulou, Effie. “Dinesen, Isak.” In Sollars, Michael D., ed. The Facts On File Companion to the World Novel, 1900 to the Present. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2008. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. Web. 19 Feb. 2012.