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At the risk of annoying some colleagues and although I agree with Vladimiro as to the necessity of a critical edition, I would like to react to Vladimiro's last mail on the topic. We have got now several translations of the latter part of the title and, as Vladimiro already stated, not all of them are 100 % satisfactory, some being better than others, but we can learn from all of them. And as I believe sharing ideas in a non competitive way is the interesting part of this forum, I would like to share with those who are willing to read any further my thoughts while reading the different mails. Lets go back to the text "Universalis cosmographiae" (universal or whole cosmography) has no sense to me, as I said before. I prefer "universalis description" (general picture or representation, not description). On the other hand, if you translate "cosmographia" as "world", as Fisher-Wieser and Hessler have done in their work, you could argue in favor of the expression "universalis cosmographiae". And although Latin dictionaries (even of Medieval and Renaissance Latin) generally translate the word "cosmographia" as meaning "cosmography" or "cosmogony" (Isidore), I found one example which could confirm its translation as world, namely Theofridus Epternacensis (12th c.: Treveris est ingens urbs, gallica regna cohercens, Victrix milicia, dominatrix, altera Roma; Plebis scita, patres habet ac fora iuraque, leges; Est caput Europȩ, caput est quȩ cosmographyȩ). But perhaps there are more texts (i.e. technical treatises), esp. of the Renaissance, using the term in this sense. I am not a specialist in the field. Tam in solido quam plano: although I don't think there is much to discuss about its interpretation here - we find the expression back in the introduction itself and in the letter to Maximilian in relation to totius orbis typus - Dennis' translation as "in a manner both complete and intelligible" is not that far-fetched, on the contrary: the expression "in solidum" (not solido) can mean "globally" and "planum" in the expression "planum facere" does mean clearly. The expression "eis... quae ... ignota a nuperis reperta sunt" is an interesting one, I think. It is generally taken as an allusion to the newly discovered lands and translated as such, but that is not exactly what the Latin says: the "ea quae ignota et reperta" are literally "things" (therefore Dennis' translation into "points") and allude to the differences of Waldseemuller's representation with Ptolemaeus'. These include of course the newly discovered lands, but not exclusively (cfr. the discussion on the equator on marine charts p. 37). And so the "nuperi" are perhaps the scholars as well as the explorers. Wouter Bracke Prenten, kaarten en plans - Estampes, cartes et plans Koninklijke Bibliotheek van België - Bibliothèque royale de Belgique Keizerslaan 4 - Boulevard de l'Empereur 4 B 1000 Brussel - B 1000 Bruxelles E-mail : [email protected] Tel.: 00.32.(0)2.519.57.43 Fax : 00.32.(0)2.519.57.42 website: http://www.kbr.be -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Vladimiro Valerio Sent: mercredi 8 juin 2011 12:56 To: Discussion group for map history Subject: [***SPAM***] - Re: [MapHist] Cosmographiae Introduction notes This is a MapHist list message (when you hit 'reply' you're replying to the whole list) o + o + o + o + o + o + o + o + o + o + o + o + o + o + o + o + o + o + o +
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