Lost Maps of the Caliphs: Drawing the World in Eleventh-Century Cairo, by Yossef Rapoport and Emilie Savage-Smith

Abstract

Buondelmonti’s. The sea is not painted green as indicated in the latter’s introduction to the book, but a rich blue. Castles, buildings and fortifications are portrayed in fine detail, so that we can understand their function and relative size. Mountains, plains, forests and rivers stand out and give us a better understanding of space. Descriptions and place-names are legible throughout the manuscript, whose condition is astonishing. At the end of the book come the islands added by Martellus. These vary in number from manuscript to manuscript, but in the version examined by Edson they are five: Cyprus, Corsica, Sardinia, Sicily and Britain. Buondelmonti always started his textual description of each island with its name (often translating the Greek into Latin). Then he went on to describe its dimensions, flora, fauna and natural products, including minerals. He related events from mythology and ancient Greek and Roman history, trying everywhere to say as much as possible about the island’s history and ancient monuments. For Delos, for example, the holy island of the Cyclades, he described how he attempted with the help of a thousand men, ropes and ships to raise the huge statue of the god Apollo. He also quoted from ancient philosophers, using phrases that had passed into everyday life. The first and most important part of Evelyn Edson’s work is her introduction. Here she tells us about the lives of Cristoforo Buondelmonti and Henricus Martellus Germanus and then describes their work in some detail, with a note on the different editions (it was first printed in 1824). After this is an account of the manuscript, as catalogued by the James Bell Library, with an explanation of the facsimile presented in her book. This is followed by comments on the transcription of the Latin and her translation into English. Then comes a double-page referencemapwith her reconstruction of Buondelmonti’s route within the Aegean, Ionian and adjacent part of the Mediterranean seas (the islands of Corsica and Sardinia are included in the isolario but the map does not extend so far west). Finally, we arrive at the facsimile, island by island, clearly and legibly displayed on 86 full-colour pages (not counting the manuscript’s end folios and covers) with 84 maps accompanying the text. The Latin transcription follows, with notes on variant spellings, the physical state of the folios, and an indication where missing or illegible words have had to be taken from another manuscript. Both transcriptions and translations are as reliable as is reasonable to expect. After the usefully annotated English translation, the book closes with the indispensable bibliography and index. All can enjoy this well-produced book and get ensnared by Buondelmonti’s maps and descriptions of the major islands of the Western world. Map historians in particular will be grateful to Evelyn Edson for her wonderful exposition of Cristoforo Buondelmonti’s pioneering creation. Isolarii still play an important role in the growing research of cartography and having such an accessible example on one’s own desk is a privilege.