The Renaissance sets the stage for sustained ocean exploration

Transcription

1 Olli Ocean Exploration The Renaissance sets the stage for sustained ocean exploration Marvin Falk The sustained exploration of the earth s ocean required a system for preservation, accumulation, and dissemination of discoveries. In Europe, a revolution in knowledge management occurred during the Renaissance and Early Modern eras that made this possible. This revolution was conceptual as well as physical. During the Middle Ages manuscripts were created and replicated by hand in a scriptorium, usually attached to a monastery. As can be imagined this was slow work and it involved a lot of cow and sheep (even goat) hides. University students would copy down their own textbooks as they listened to a professor read an important text adding the professor s comments and analysis (gloss). Secular authorities kept records on parchment as well. Increased use of paper ushered in printing. At first hand-carved blocks of wood with text and illustrations were inked and pressed on paper (common since 1400 in Europe, but done in Asia at least 1,000 years earlier), then came moveable type (around 1440). Now texts could be distributed widely and new information could be widely shared, relatively quickly. Literacy increased and publication in national languages were increasingly used (not just Latin). Maps How better to visualize and document voyages and discoveries than maps? T and O maps The most common maps of the world during the Middle Ages were the Mappa Mundi based upon a T and O representation of the world The concept is primarily theological. More and more information was added. The most elaborate existing map is in the Hereford Cathedral in England.

2 Hereford Mappa Mundi, Detail from the Hereford map 1 For a detailed consideration of the Hereford map see

3 Schematic view of the Hereford map

4 Portolan Maps These medieval maps were used for navigation, hand drawn on vellum, they were primarily of the Mediterranean. They are astonishingly accurate. Pietro Vesconte, 1311

5 Catalan Atlas 1375

6 Detail from the 1489 Albino de Canepa Portolan Chart

7 Revival of the Ancients: Ptolemy rediscovered Claudius Ptolemy ( AD) was a Greek scholar living in Alexandria as a Roman citizen. He was a mathematician and astronomer as well as a geographer The fall of Constantinople in 1453 hastened the acquisition of ancient texts by Italian renaissance scholars. One of these was the geography of Claudius Ptolemy. No world maps from the ancient world have survived, but Ptolemy s geography provides directions for the creation of one. His greatest contribution is the introduction of a grid which allowed precise positioning on a map: latitude and longitude. His maps became widely published in Europe and formed a base map for the addition of new discoveries. Maps then evolved over time as new discoveries altered the original map. Claudius Ptolemy, Ulm Rome s 2ond century knowledge of the world

8 On the verge of discovery: the Behaim globe Martian Behaim ( ) received a commission from the city of Nuremberg Germany to create a terrestrial globe. It still exists in a German museum. After spending time in Flanders and Portugal he created his globe in 1492 at the same time Columbus was on his first voyage, but before he returned. It sums up the knowledge of the world prior to the discovery of the Americas.

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12 ½ of the Stobnicza world map, 1512 The figure of the earth was at first a great mystery, lasting in one form or another for 300 years especially near the poles. Below is one attempt from our own collection at the Rasmuson Library. It shows a land connection from Europe, through Greenland, to Asia. The New World is simply an extension of Asia. 2 2 For an analysis of early pre-discovery maps of the North Pacific see Falk, Images of Pre-Discovery Alaska in the Work of European Cartographers, Arctic, vol. 37, no. 4 (December, 1984), pp

13 Carta Marina Nova Tabula. Gastaldi 1548 The history of cartography through the age of discoveries is beyond this lecture. Refinements continued to be made, including a map projection that would allow a three-dimensional world to be rendered on two dimensional paper (Gerhard Mercator). Printed atlases were widely distributed and new discoveries, and occasionally dubious spurious voyages, were added as they became available. Sometimes, because older plates continued to be used for decades, changes were slow to reach publication. Then there were secrets. Whalers were reluctant to have rivals know about their harvests; the Spanish government did not want pirates raiding their treasure ships; governments feared theft of state secrets; even scientific expeditions were sometimes kept away from prying eyes. However, by the late 18 th and early 19 th centuries, discoveries became a matter of national pride and were celebrated. By the 18 th century, voyages of discovery began to study the North Pacific.

14 Modern depiction of Bering s Sv. Gavriil, Below: a page from Bering s 1728 log

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