[ISHMap-List] R: A critical review of the hypothesis of a medieval origin for portolan charts

[giulio pizzati]

Read "THE FOUR SURVEYORS" or "RENDER UNTO CAESAR..." by Giulio Pizzati in Google Books or Researchgate.




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Il sab 15 mar 2014 08:36 CET, Luis Robles ha scritto:

>I received this news last Wednesday through from Frank Jacobs's "Strange
>Maps" blog in BigThink (
>http://bigthink.com/strange-maps/648-portolan-charts-too-accurate-to-be-medieval).
>I assume that many of you must have received it too but just in case I
>thought I should post it here for general information.
>
>*Roel Nicolai*, a PhD student at the University of Utrecht, presented last
>March 3 his doctoral dissertation entitled *A critical review of the
>hypothesis of a medieval origin for portolan charts*. He reached several
>provocative conclusions that I expect will stir debate among the members of
>the list. The book is not available online yet, but in the University's
>website there is a press
>release<http://press.uu.nl/origin-of-medieval-sea-charts-disproven/>in
>English from which I have extracted the following statements:
>
>   - "A mathematical analysis of the oldest surviving portolan has revealed
>   that its source data must have been derived from a portolan chart - instead
>   of the other way round."
>   - "it is unlikely that the nautical compass was available in time and
>   that  navigational methods used at that time were sophisticated enough to
>   determine distances at such a degree of accuracy"
>   - "Nicolai has also established that portolan charts were drawn on the
>   Mercator projection, or a similar type of projection."
>   - "they were much further advanced in terms of knowledge in the Middle
>   Ages than we think"
>   - "An Arabic-Islamic origin is highly unlikely, according to Nicolai."
>   - "It therefore seems plausible that portolan charts originated from a
>   tradition that is now lost. It is an intriguing question from what culture
>   that tradition stemmed. Further research will be required to establish
>   whether or not Greco-Roman antiquity is a realistic option, says Nicolai."
>
>The university does not say whether Mr Nicolai was awarded the doctorate or
>how to get access to his publication.
>
>-- 
>Luis A. Robles Macías
>
>Profile in Academia.edu <http://independent.academia.edu/LuisRoblesMacías>
>Blog: http://historiaymapas.wordpress.com/