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<p>Roel,</p>
<p>I am grateful to you for a number of useful comments on my
'Cartographic innovations by the early portolan chartmakers'
(<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.maphistory.info/PortolanChartInnovations.html">http://www.maphistory.info/PortolanChartInnovations.html</a>). [For
the full text of Roel's post see:
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://lazarus.elte.hu/pipermail/ishm/2017-January/000536.html">http://lazarus.elte.hu/pipermail/ishm/2017-January/000536.html</a>.]<br>
</p>
<p>This is precisely what I was hoping for, and it would be
excellent if others contributed as well.<br>
</p>
<p>As a result I have made some additions and corrections to the
online document:</p>
<p>1. I have corrected, at the beginning of 'The Innovations'
section, the 'passed down as partial charts' comment</p>
<p>2. I have suppressed the comment about the length of the
Mediterranean, which, as you say, <font size="+3"><span
style="font-size:9.0pt;font-family:"Times New
Roman",serif;
mso-fareast-font-family:SimSun;mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;mso-fareast-language:
ZH-CN;mso-bidi-language:AR-SA">Luis A. Robles Macias had
already pointed out.</span></font><br>
</p>
<p>However, we do have continuing areas of disagreement and, without
repeating what has already been said, I include a few brief
comments here.</p>
<p>While I fully take your point about the need to distinguish
hydrographic outlines from toponymy in a consideration of the
charts' origins - and there are indications that they may have had
separate developments anyway - I do not see how any kind of
pre-medieval origin can be proposed for the Atlantic coastlines.
So, even if we agree that the toponymy is medieval, the Atlantic
coasts, which were charted, up to about Bruges, either side of
1300, cannot be included in any hypothesis about the ancient
coastlines of the Mediterranean and Black Sea.</p>
<p>You write: "Before the advent of portolan charts no known map was
drawn to a consistent scale (neither was any map for a
considerable period after that)". What about Ptolemy?</p>
<p>You write: "The wind rose itself was a major innovation, because
it didn’t exist before (the naming system of winds probably did,
but not the diagram). It allowed directional measurements to be
made across the chart, a novel usage of a map. The innovation to
the wind rose by Petrus Roselli you mention is actually a minor
one, but you misunderstand its meaning. Roselli indeed drew 16
more lines through the centre point of the wind rose from about
1456 onwards, but this does not increase the number of distinct
directions to 64, as you claim. This number remains 32, as the new
lines do not constitute new directions; they were already present
in the (old) wind rose but do not run through the centre."</p>
<p>The portolan charts cannot claim to have invented the wind rose.
Ancient navigators had at least a mental compass, with 8 or 12
named wind directions, assumed to blow equidistantly from their
respective points around a circle. Standard texts used those in
contexts where we could cite a compass direction, and the House of
the Winds in Athens physically demonstrates the 8-point version.
<br>
</p>
<p>As to the number of compass lines on the Roselli charts, we are
not saying different things. I did not claim that the number of
direction lines had been increased. Indeed, in <i>The History of
Cartography</i> (1987) I, p.396 (which I reference), I wrote
that "in duplicating existing compass directions, the added lines
serve no obvious practical function."<br>
</p>
<p>Your main concerns are of course cartometric ones. First of all,
it is incorrect to say that I 'reject' cartometric analysis. <br>
</p>
<p>What I had hoped for from the Lisbon meeting last June was that
it would attract a number of participants who looked at the charts
from geometric and mathematical angles. The ensuing debate could
then have demonstrated how much unanimity there was among those
who were coming from a different direction to the traditional
historians. Would different analytical techniques produce
different results? Would the necessary choices made by two
different people working with the same technique produce an
identical result?<br>
</p>
<p>Unfortunately, that did not really happen and what discussion
there was did not help to convince the historians in the audience
that the startling interpretation to which you felt your research
led you was one we were forced to follow. You were well aware of
that. </p>
<p>If I might make a suggestion, which I hope is thought helpful.
Since I have commented, here and elsewhere, only on the
implications of your claim for a pre-medieval original, and have
said nothing about your methodology, my own views as to your
cartometric evidence are of far less worth than would be those of
your fellow practitioners. What did not happen in Lisbon -
perhaps from an understandable feeling among cartometric
specialists that they would be heavily outnumbered by historians -
could be achieved by a special meeting, or possibly a joint
publication, devoted to cartometric analysis of the portolan
charts. <br>
</p>
<p>If, by that or some other means, your methods and results were
endorsed by those well qualified to make such judgements, your
case would be immeasurably strengthened. But your work really
needs that endorsement, which was not evident to me in Lisbon.</p>
<p>Good wishes,</p>
<p>Tony Campbell<br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
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</p>
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</p>
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