In this exhibition, the term
“marginalia” is used to refer to the
images at the margins of maps.
became part of a completely illuminated frame, where sometimes
images themselves. They were still present but mostly relegated to
all the various types and elements of the marginal repertory—
the margins. The variety of maps in the exhibition show various
flora, fauna, human figures, geometric and fantastic motifs—were
forms of scientific projection, such as Ptolemy’s pseudo-conic first
reproduced in an obsessively microscopic scale (plate 2).
projection (plate 7) or his second “oval” one (plate 9); a cordiform
(plate 20) or double-hemisphere maps (plates 17, 28, 29, 31, 32);
Maps are also part of the marginalia repertoire. In the Etymologies
of Saint Isidore (ca. 560–636), a summa of universal knowledge in the
or the Mercator projection, introduced in 1569 and still used in
Middle Ages, the chapter devoted to the description of the world (“De
cartography today (plate 26). This scientism was compatible with
Orbe”) is usually illustrated with a map that sometimes is relegated to
artistic marginalia. In fact, as Matthew Edney argues, the double
the margin; thus it is not inserted within the writing frame (plate 3).
hemisphere projection not only favored the sense of the earth’s
In this exhibition, the term marginalia is used to refer to the
sphericity but also allowed a great deal of room in the margins for
images at the margins of maps. Throughout history, art and
decorative elements.
cartography have walked hand in hand: artistic motifs were used
As in medieval illuminated manuscripts, marginal images in
to represent geographical elements, cities, the different people who
cartography should be regarded not only as part of the map,
lived in the world, and so forth; and at the same time, there was
but as elements that lead to a better understanding of the region
no clear professional recognition, to the point that an artist could
mapped, of the cartographers and their collaborators, of their
be responsible for both a map and for an illuminated manuscript
aesthetic sense, and of the world in which they were made. These
or a painting in another artistic medium. The European discovery
artistic motifs have to be part of cartography studies for a full
of Claudius Ptolemy’s Geography in the early fifteenth century
understanding of maps, because, as J. Brian Harley stated, “Both
and the impulse given to mathematics in cartography by the
decorative and geographical images on a map are unified parts of a
Flemish cartographer Gerard Mercator (1512–1594) prompted the
total image.” The exhibition Marginalia in cARTography challenges
development of Western cartography as a science and increased the
us to look at maps in a way that we are not used to: awarding their
interest of solving the problem of how to project the spherical earth
margins a central position.
on the flat surface of a map. Moreover, a deeper knowledge of the
physical world increased the number of toponyms and amount of
geographic detail. Thus the many blank spaces that before were
filled with artistic motifs disappeared from maps, but not the
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