A map of the world produced in 1491 by Henricus
Martellus has been subjected to multispectral imaging, which has revealed
hidden details on the map not previously visible, including numerous Latin
descriptions of regions and people. Henricus Martellus, a German cartographer
working in Florence in the late 15th century, produced a highly detailed map of
the known world. According to experts, there is strong evidence that
Christopher Columbus studied this map and that it influenced his thinking
before his fateful voyage. Martellus' map arrived at Yale in 1962, the gift of
an anonymous donor. Scholars at the time hailed the map's importance and argued
that it could provide a missing link to the cartographic record at the dawn of
the Age of Discovery. However, five centuries of fading and scuffing had
rendered much of the map's text and other details illegible or invisible,
limiting its research value. A team of researchers and imaging specialists is
recovering the lost information through a multispectral-imaging project. Their
work is yielding discoveries about how the world was viewed over 500 years ago. Last August the five-member team visited the
Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, where for years the Martellus map
hung from a wall outside the reading room. (It was recently moved to the Yale
University Art Gallery for storage while the library is under renovation.) The
team, funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities,
photographed the map in 12 reflective colors, including several frequencies
beyond the range of visible light. Those images were processed and analyzed
with high-tech software. June 12 http://phys.org/news/2015-06-hidden-secrets-world-revealed-multispectral.html
The work
on the imaging was carried out at the Yale University Art Gallery. Shown here
is the chart for the Mercury station direct on June 12 at New Haven,
Connecticut where the Gallery is located.
A T-square comprising
Mercury-Saturn-Neptune is placed on the angles and therefore prominent
for the place.
The next
question is how do we discover the possible meanings latent in any
configuration, as pointers to situations or images that we encounter. One way is to think of
keywords or phrases for each planet and then link them together. For example
Neptune is the ‘ocean’, Saturn the ‘lord of boundaries’ as well as the ‘capacity for organization’ and Mercury is a ‘collection of data’. Does
that fit into a world map showing the land mass as separated from the sea? How about another combination? Neptune is
vague, unclear, foggy, difficult to pin down while Saturn insists on boundaries,
definition and therefore clarity. The
new technique of multispectral imaging has helped to reveal details of a map that had previously been obscured by
five centuries of fading and scuffing. Would that not be classified under a
Saturn-Neptune project?
Comments
Post a Comment