IGU Thematic conference ‚The Ocean and Seas in Geographical Thought, University of Milano-Bicocca, 6-7 June 2023
Suggested Slots for Session 8 “Liquid worlds: historical geographies and cartographies of the sea”, organised by the COMMISSION HISTORY OF GEOGRAPHY 1.
Chair: Federico Ferretti
Y. Ding, Reporting from the Seven Seas: The Naval Chronicle (1799-1818) and Periodical Geography at the Turn of the Nineteenth Century
Geography changed tremendously between the eighteenth and nineteenth century. The early decades of the nineteenth century saw the foundation of geographical societies and the appearance of geographical journals. They differ from their eighteenth century precedents in, among other aspects, the institutional endorsement. How did this change come to be? In this paper, I examine the correspondences contained in the 40 volumes of The Naval Chronicle, published between 1799 and 1818 under the indirect auspices of the Admiralty. The officers of the Royal Navy that were dispatched around the globe to combat during the Napoleonic Wars, were the main contributors to the Correspondence and the Hydrography section, but there were also other British and foreign correspondents. Taken together, they formed a network, with London as its clearing house, exchanging and improving geographical knowledge, and hydrographical knowledge in particular. Some of the active members involved in The Naval Chronicle, including John Barrow and James Horsburgh, also involved in the founding of the Royal Geographical Society and its journal. Arguably, the dire need of geographical and hydrographical information at such a critical moment in British history helped to elevate not only the status of geography, but also the social standing of the contributors, who were otherwise unlikely part of the Republic of Letters. In a way, this under-studied period paved the way for the transformation of geography into what is known today.
C. & J.M. Rogerson, Neglected historical geographies of coastal tourism: Mossel Bay, South Africa c1850-1991
As recently documented by Germond-Duret (2022) and Heidkamp et al (2023) during the past decade there has occurred a burst of international research and debate on the ‘blue economy’ including a growth of geography-specific scholarship. Geographical scholars call for critical engagement with the blue economy and incorporating key concepts such as place, space and locality. Arguably, however, within the extant geographical literature there is an overwhelming ‘present-mindedness’ and limited historical perspectives. This paper modestly addresses this neglected knowledge gap by using an historical approach and archival sources to undertake a locality-based study of the historical transitions which have shaped and reshaped one coastal settlement in South Africa. The Mossel Bay area is of considerable historical significance because of its long history of indigenous settlement before the first European contacts triggered by the arrival in 1488 of Bartholomew Diaz and crew who were in search for a trading sea route for Portugal to India. The coastal town’s ‘modern’ history dates from the mid-19th century with a local economy anchored initially on farming, fishing and activities around the port. As a result of the area’s natural beauty this coastal town experienced during the early 20th century a socio-economic transition with health and leisure tourism diversifying the local economy. The nature of this colonial growth of tourism in Mossel Bay and the distinctive tourism economy of the town under apartheid is interrogated. This culminated in the scripting of the controversial 1988 Dias festival hosted to celebrate the opening of ‘apartheid’s last museum’, an event which occurred before Mossel Bay would experience a radical social transition following South Africa’s democratic elections. Overall, the evolutionary pathways and transitions in the historical geography of this coastal locality are the central focus.
H. Campbell Hewson, Bermuda: a forgotten representation of Atlantic Ocean Space
At the dawn of the Modern era, as European maps and map-making became defined by intellectual objectivity and accuracy, the binary of ‘land’ and ‘sea’ became increasingly important in cartographic representations of the ocean. This in turn led to islands being represented as fixed spaces demarcated by coastlines grounded in the strict insular difference between these two categories. However, this delineation is a cultural construct, as it is based on ‘natural’ geographic forms that were socially created to enforce the idea of oceans, islands and shores being internally coherent. By contrast, within early modern geographic thought these components made up interdependent and connected spaces which were not simply defined by their physical differences. Rather than a meeting point between ‘land’ and ‘sea’, island space in the earlier era was its own unique construction, being neither-land-nor-sea. By considering the cartographic representation of Bermuda, from early mapping by Diego Ramirez and John Smith to the notable Lempriere chart in the eighteenth century, it is possible to consider how cartography grappled with the conceptual issues of depicting islands, and in turn, address a space which was ‘of the ocean’ whilst also ‘developable’.
A. Gallia and M. Castaldi, From Geography to Cartography: oceans, seas and “Open Mediterraneans” into the dialogue between Adriano Balbi and Evangelista Azzi
In the first half of the 19th century Adriano Balbi (1782-1848) was one of the greatest geographers in Italy and Europe. His scientific output was extremely vast and was constantly being updated. He tried to keep up with new discoveries of ‚unknown and unexplored‘ territories, which were gradually available to the scientific community. His work influenced geographers and cartographers, who used it as a source. Evangelista Azzi (1793-1848), a cartographer and military topographer from Parma Duchies, produced a wide corpus of school maps. His Mappamondo in two Hemispheres (1838) was of great relevance, conceived as an enormous wall map (2 x 4 mt) that summarized the geographical, historical and ethnographic knowledge of the time, as an encyclopaedic work. For the collection of data, he used contemporary geographical and cartographic works, including those of Adriano Balbi, with whom he had a close epistolary relationship. The ‚master of geography‘ understood the importance of a cartographic restitution of his works and supported the cartographer, transferring numerous notions to him. Among these was the one related to seas and oceans, which in the Hemispheres are named as they appear in Balbi’s works. Specifically, the Mappamondo is the first map where the Balbi’s definition of “Open Mediterraneans” along the American coasts appears. The primary objective of the speech is to show the synthesis between the studies of historical geography and historical cartography on seas, with a direct transposition of knowledge from text to map. Understanding the dialogue between geographers and cartographers in conveying a common narrative of the seas, we can analyse Azzi’s cartographies as the visual synthesis of Balbi’s geographical proposals Finally, the metaphor of water and liquid worlds lends itself well to observing the dynamism of small pre-unitary Italian actors that dialogued on global issues, going beyond state borders and moving within a common Risorgimento context.
festival hosted to celebrate the opening of ‘apartheid’s last museum’, an event which occurred before Mossel Bay would experience a radical social transition following South Africa’s democratic elections. Overall, the evolutionary pathways and transitions in the historical geography of this coastal locality are the central focus.
H. Campbell Hewson, Bermuda: a forgotten representation of Atlantic Ocean Space
At the dawn of the Modern era, as European maps and map-making became defined by intellectual objectivity and accuracy, the binary of ‘land’ and ‘sea’ became increasingly important in cartographic representations of the ocean. This in turn led to islands being represented as fixed spaces demarcated by coastlines grounded in the strict insular difference between these two categories. However, this delineation is a cultural construct, as it is based on ‘natural’ geographic forms that were socially created to enforce the idea of oceans, islands and shores being internally coherent. By contrast, within early modern geographic thought these components made up interdependent and connected spaces which were not simply defined by their physical differences. Rather than a meeting point between ‘land’ and ‘sea’, island space in the earlier era was its own unique construction, being neither-land-nor-sea. By considering the cartographic representation of Bermuda, from early mapping by Diego Ramirez and John Smith to the notable Lempriere chart in the eighteenth century, it is possible to consider how cartography grappled with the conceptual issues of depicting islands, and in turn, address a space which was ‘of the ocean’ whilst also ‘developable’.
A. Gallia and M. Castaldi, From Geography to Cartography: oceans, seas and “Open Mediterraneans” into the dialogue between Adriano Balbi and Evangelista Azzi
In the first half of the 19th century Adriano Balbi (1782-1848) was one of the greatest geographers in Italy and Europe. His scientific output was extremely vast and was constantly being updated. He tried to keep up with new discoveries of ‚unknown and unexplored‘ territories, which were gradually available to the scientific community. His work influenced geographers and cartographers, who used it as a source. Evangelista Azzi (1793-1848), a cartographer and military topographer from Parma Duchies, produced a wide corpus of school maps. His Mappamondo in two Hemispheres (1838) was of great relevance, conceived as an enormous wall map (2 x 4 mt) that summarized the geographical, historical and ethnographic knowledge of the time, as an encyclopaedic work. For the collection of data, he used contemporary geographical and cartographic works, including those of Adriano Balbi, with whom he had a close epistolary relationship. The ‚master of geography‘ understood the importance of a cartographic restitution of his works and supported the cartographer, transferring numerous notions to him. Among these was the one related to seas and oceans, which in the Hemispheres are named as they appear in Balbi’s works. Specifically, the Mappamondo is the first map where the Balbi’s definition of “Open Mediterraneans” along the American coasts appears. The primary objective of the speech is to show the synthesis between the studies of historical geography and historical cartography on seas, with a direct transposition of knowledge from text to map. Understanding the dialogue between geographers and cartographers in conveying a common narrative of the seas, we can analyse Azzi’s cartographies as the visual synthesis of Balbi’s geographical proposals Finally, the metaphor of water and liquid worlds lends itself well to observing the dynamism of small pre-unitary Italian actors that dialogued on global issues, going beyond state borders and moving within a common Risorgimento context.
E. Dorovitsa, From foreign patronage to reclaiming maternal influence on the Mediterranean Sea: Greek hydrography in transit, 1900-1940
Robert Shannan Peckham (2000) has illustrated how geographical culture and its promise to guarantee territorial sovereignty fostered Greek nationalism from the 1830s onwards and resulted in ‘map mania’. He further noted that geology could play a similar role as a patriotic discipline. This paper hypothesizes that if geography and geology could act as pillars of nationalist ideology, so could hydrography.
This paper unfolds the trajectory of hydrographic research by the Greek Hydrography Service between 1900 and 1940. It argues that deep sea research of Greek waters shifted from being an accessible terrain of multifaceted foreign scientific and political endeavours to an ideologically loaded vehicle that promoted Greek maritime prowess within the Mediterranean basin and nurtured the military irredentist ideology of the ‘Great Idea’ that called for the expansion of the newly sovereign State’s borders. This transition further hinged on ancestral claims of Greece as being the archetypal Mediterranean maritime nation that could no longer lag behind in hydrographical advancements. However, as long as inherently rigid structural pitfalls in the organizational and managerial front persisted within the Greek Navy, Greek hydrographic research maintained its transient status for at least the first 40 years of its existence.
Chair: André Reyes Novaes
A. Onjo, On the ideas of ocean and land in the works of Paul Vidal de la Blache
The aim of this paper will re-examine the ideas of relationality of ocean and land in the works of P. Vidal de la Blache. He had a great interest in the ‘modernization’ of the world in general and Asia in particular from the beginning of his academic carrier as a geographer. Especially he addressed the phenomena of ‘circulation’ and discussed the influences of rapid changes of ‘absolute and relative space-time’ on the geo-economic and geopolitical relationships between ocean and land. When he developed his geographical perspective, it seems that India, China, and Japan became the essential fields. Because the modernization of non-European regions changed the existing world system and increased the economic competition, military tension, and cultural conflict in global scale. Vidal addressed the potential conflicts between Russia and Great Britain in central Asia (1875). He regarded the colonization of central Asia as the power struggle between continental and oceanic power, and paid attention to its impacts on military balance in Asia and Europa. Although his ideas may be similar to the geopolitical relations between ‘land power’ and ‘sea power’ conceived by H. Mackinder (1904), there are some differences between them. Vidal was also interested in the differences between China and Japan on modernization. He considered that Japanese society could select and accept various cultural and technical elements from abroad due to its historical experiences of ‘insularity’’, while the attitudes of continental civilization such as China and India were more conservative and resisted the European invasions. He tried to understand the regional difference and diversity of the modernization from the point of ocean and land. Although his geographical ideas of land and sea may be traditional, it is important to reconsider them in order to understand his perspective about the modernization and the modern world-system.
M.-V. Ozouf-Marignier, Relations between geography and oceanography in France (1891-1911)
In France, 1891 was the year of the creation of a new periodical, the Annales de géographie, designed to diffuse the work of a discipline in full institutionalization and of a current asserting its principles and methods, that of Vidal de la Blache and his disciples. The same year, the textbook on oceanography by Julien Thoulet (1843-1936), recognized as the first French oceanographer, was published. At the turn of the century, the Prince of Monaco, fascinated by the oceans, worked to encourage expeditions, to create an institute of oceanography in Monaco and then in Paris and to encourage research in oceanography. How did the relationship between a new science, geography, and a new science, oceanography, develop, both of which were strongly based on natural sciences and nourished by field experiences (voyages and expeditions)? How did they compare with the pioneering work carried out in other countries such as England (which was at the origin of the famous oceanographic expedition of the Challenger, whose scientific report also appeared in 1891) or Germany ? It appears that at the end of the century, French geography observed with great attention the work carried out within the framework of the expeditions and the first publications that resulted
from them. An „oceanography“ section appeared in the Annales as soon as they were created and the works in this field were systematically listed in a section. In a first phase, geographers thought of oceanography as a constituent part of physical geography, the geology and topography of the ocean floor having the same objectives as those of the land masses, such as the realization of a systematic cartography. However, oceanography is developing independently, with specific methods and techniques and increasingly strong links with the exact and life sciences. The communication will be based on the analysis of the Annales de géographie, the Revue de géographie and the Bulletin du Musée d’océanographie de Monaco.
A. Ferraz, ‘La lutte des eaux’: Camille Vallaux’s geopolitics, oceanography and climate futures
In this paper, I review the oceanic imaginations of the French geographer Camille Vallaux (1870-1945), engaging both with his political and geophysical geographical writing. To begin with, I examine Vallaux’s early intellectual engagement with maritime political geography from 1908 to 1914, focusing especially on his dialogue with German geographical writing and naval politics. In a second part, tracking Vallaux’s responses to the First World War and its aftermath, I examine his growing reflection on new maritime technologies and their revolutionary potential, from submarines to fishing-factory boats, to airplanes. In a third and final phase, I then discuss Vallaux’s marked turn to oceanography and his involvement in debates about oceanic climate change in the interwar period. To conclude, I reflect on how Vallaux’s oceanic geopolitics may be engaged with today, both as an artefact of European imperialism and as an early reflection of the political sensitiveness of global oceanic environmental changes.
3.
Chair: Marie-Vic Ozouf-Marignier
J. Gomez Mendoza, Connaissances et cartographies des océans à l’époque des grandes découvertes d’après Humboldt dans son Examen Critique de l’Histoire de la Géographie du Nouveau Monde
L’édition complète de l’Examen Critique de l’Histoire de la Géographie du Nouveau Continent (1836-1839) de Humboldt vient d’apparaître en espagnol. C’est un grand livre qui veut placer les découvertes maritimes de la fin du XVème et XVIème dans la perspective des enchaînements des idées et des connaissances cosmographiques à partir des présomptions gréco latines de l’existence de terres à l’ouest et de la possibilité d’une navigation vers l’est par l’ouest. Humboldt entreprend une extraordinaire révision de textes et de cartographies, mais aussi des mythes et même des idées fausses, de l’Antiquité à la Renaissance à travers des soi-disant ténèbres de Moyen âge. Selon Humboldt, à la fois l’héritage des savants (Roger Bacon, Beauvais, Albert le Grand), des cartographes (al-Idrisi, Toscanelli, Behaim) des voyageurs (les Zeno, Carpini, Ruysbroek…), des marchands genevois et vénitiens, auraient accordé aux entreprises de découverte maritime, en particulier à celle de Christophe Colomb un sens de projet bâti sur la raison. Un projet rationnel mais plein d’erreurs, qui auraient d’ailleurs paradoxalement facilité l’entreprise: un océan très réduit, la présence supposée de nombreuses îles etc. Cette communication retrace les hypothèses de Humboldt, mal connues jusqu’ici, appuyée d’ailleurs sur une très abondante cartographie de terres et mers.
J. Sutlovic, The evolution of signs related to the safety of navigation on early modern nautical charts of the Adriatic sea
The Adriatic Sea is one of the Mediterranean’s most interconnected navigational areas that had the same development problems as the Mediterranean did. It was referred to by Ferdinand Braudel as the „Mediterranean within the Mediterranean“ as it was one of the most dynamic socio-economic components of the Mediterranean. The Adriatic has a millennia-long history of maritime navigation, which makes it significant for this study. Approximately 100 nautical charts depicting the Adriatic Sea, both early modern manuscript nautical charts with rhumb networks and early modern printed nautical charts with or without graticules, make up the research sample. The study’s main goal is to examine the evolution of the signs, related to the safety of navigation, drawn on early modern nautical charts of the Adriatic Sea. According to a review of the literature, there is no research, of this kind, specifically focused only on the representations of the Adriatic Sea. Each chart will be examined, and all the signs will be tabulated. According to preliminary research, the signs can convey two different types of information, either danger or navigational aid. For instance, shoals and rocks are those that represent danger, and safe anchorages and depths are those that can be of help. The study’s findings are anticipated to serve as a supplement to existing knowledge and understanding of how nautical chart signs have changed over time. Early modern nautical charts of the Adriatic Sea are an important source of information, a means of navigation, and a medium of communication. The development of signs enhanced the navigator’s capacity to communicate with the outside world through the mediation of the cartographer. NOTE: This research is a part of the Scientific project IP-2020-02-5339 Early Modern Nautical Charts of the Adriatic Sea: Information Sources, Navigation Means and Communication Media (NACHAS) funded by the Croatian Science Foundation.
T. Shimazu, Representing a maritime empire: allegorical artworks at the East India House in London, 1729-1799
Public and monumental artworks have in some cases been infused with territorial claims and ambitions on the part of art producers. They formed part of the visible environment at different scales from the room interior to the city’s public place. Allegory and symbolism have been commonly used to communicate these ideas and the visibility of artworks has helped in the process of signification and interpretation. The deployment of allegorical artworks in territorial terms flourished in the European long nineteenth century; however, its origin would go back to the post-Westphalian early modern era. This paper focuses on several allegorical artworks featuring Britannia placed on the inside and outside of the East India House on Leadenhall Street in London. East India House had functioned there as the headquarter of the British East India
Company between 1648 and 1858. The edifice experienced major rebuilding twice in 1729 and 1799, resulting respectively in Palladian and Neoclassical architecture, along with the growth of Georgian Britain as a global sea power. Soon after the first rebuilding, a mantelpiece with bas-relief “Britannia receiving the riches of the East” was set up in the Directors’ Court Room. In 1778, the Revenue Committee Room acquired a ceiling painting “The East offering its riches to Britannia.” Upon the second rebuilding, the Neoclassical façade was topped by a pediment with relief sculptures including Britannia, the personified Thames and Ganges. On the top of the pediment were placed the statues of Britannia, personified Europe and Asia. These artworks formed together a network of visible signs in order to signify the expanding British maritime empire.
A. Reyes Novaes e M. Lamego, Bordering Antarctica: Therezinha de Castro and the use of cartography in the geopolitics of the sea
Antarctica’s borders were a significant topic in South American geopolitics during the mid-twentieth century. The criteria to define territories in the uninhabited continent often encompassed the geopolitics of the seas. This paper focuses on the cartographic project proposed by the Brazilian geopolitician and geographer Therezinha de Castro (1930-2000). Disciple of the notorious Brazilian geographer Delgado de Carvalho (1884-1980), Castro became one of the great thinkers on Brazilian geopolitics in the 1950s, using cartography as an important tool to illustrate and circulate her geographical thinking. In 1956, she wrote the first version of her most impactful work, the article “Heading to Antarctica”, published in the Military journal. This was the first time that Castro presented her map with the „theory of confrontation“, in which the South American countries project their territories to the seas to define national areas in Antarctica. Her theory was not well received either by neighbouring countries, who thought that Brazil intended an area too large or by the United States, which accused Brazil of violating the mare liberum principle. Although contested internationally, Castro’s ideas were widely circulated in South America and were disseminated in Brazil through many subsequent publications, such as educational atlases and academic books. By exploring Castro’s geopolitical thinking and cartographic practices, this paper argues how the geopolitics of the seas and the lands are deeply linked with map histories.
G. Palsky, The ocean surface, a laboratory for the language of thematic cartography
The ocean, far from being a neutral surface, appears in the history of cartography as a heuristic surface, allowing graphic innovation. Indeed, if they wanted to mark out this fluid space devoid of concrete objects (except for the islands), cartographers were obliged to express abstract data, which were not optical but ontological in nature. Thus, at the turn of the 17th century and in the period that followed, special or thematic nautical charts multiplied in Europe, expressing in particular knowledge about magnetism, marine currents, and winds. To show these phenomena, cartographers had to forge a new graphic language, a system of signs that could express these data, more abstract than the various objects of the landscape shown on general maps. To do this, they drew on several sources: the figurative tradition, but also the conventions of general or topographic cartography. We will observe this transitional moment from several examples, chosen in particular from the French cartography of the 17th and 18th centuries, developed following the pioneering work of Edmund Halley or Benjamin Franklin. Combining a selective spirit with the expression of more abstract phenomena, these marine maps may appear as the first true thematic maps, according to their modern definition