BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:-//pretalx//pretalx.com//spathum24//speaker//ZAM9PK BEGIN:VTIMEZONE TZID:CET BEGIN:STANDARD DTSTART:20001029T040000 RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;BYDAY=-1SU;BYMONTH=10 TZNAME:CET TZOFFSETFROM:+0200 TZOFFSETTO:+0100 END:STANDARD BEGIN:DAYLIGHT DTSTART:20000326T030000 RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;BYDAY=-1SU;BYMONTH=3 TZNAME:CEST TZOFFSETFROM:+0100 TZOFFSETTO:+0200 END:DAYLIGHT END:VTIMEZONE BEGIN:VEVENT UID:pretalx-spathum24-HBMKQM@pretalx.com DTSTART;TZID=CET:20240926T100000 DTEND;TZID=CET:20240926T103000 DESCRIPTION:This is a presentation of a set of spatial data which was creat ed during a digitisation project conducted in 2022-2023 in the National Li brary of Finland. It is a corpus consisting of place names from the 15th c entury manuscript work of Ptolemaic maps\, some 5000 in total\, recorded i n the library database. My aim is to invite scholars to develop and make u se of the data and suggest some ways of georeferencing the places in the m aps. \n\nThe maps can be browsed and the place names can be searched in th e library's search service kansalliskirjasto.finna.fi. The digitised maps are available on the digi.kansalliskirjasto.fi platform. Both services\, F inna and digi.kansalliskirjasto.fi\, provide an API that enables processin g of the data.\n\nThe work in question is titled at some point Cosmographi a and it consists of 27 maps drawn after Geographia Hyphegesis by Claudius Ptolemy. The manuscript was most probably produced by the workshop of Ni colaus Germanus (ca. 1420-ca. 1490) in Florence during the late 15th centu ry. The maps are bound together with a work La sfera by a Florentine merch ant and humanist Gregorio Dati. Both works in this manuscript\, Cosmograph ia and La sfera\, are products of the same hand and the same workshop. The work including the maps has raised only minimal scholarly attention. In 2 014\, Chet Van Duzer published an article focusing on the non-Ptolemaic le gends added to the maps. He makes comparisons with other copies from the s ame period in other collections. Before him\, there were no studies which would have been focused on the maps of the manuscript. The work of Dati ha s been an interest of only a few as well. \n\nAccording to van Duzer\, th e maps in this manuscript belong to the first group of the three of Ptolem ies produced in Florence by Nicolaus Germanus and his workshop. These maps are less luxurious copies than the other known copies in other public col lections. However\, in the maps in question here\, there is an unusually h igh amount of added information on the maps: legends and place names. This feature seems to be almost unique. There are both Ptolemaic and non-Ptole maic place names\, indicating that they derive from the Ptolemy’s text a nd from other sources. In addition to the place names\, there are short me ntions and longer explanations about exotic animals\, mythical monsters an d peoples\, among other subjects\, which are not mentioned by Ptolemy at a ll. \n\nTherefore\, the corpus of the place names was created among the di gitisation project mentioned above. While the metadata of each map was cre ated by cataloguing them in MARC21 format in the library database\, all th e place names and legends were extracted from maps as well. This resulted 27 bibliographic records of the category map\, with a large amount of the field 522\, a note on geographical coverage. The highest amount of place n ames\, over 600\, was recorded in the map of Asia minor (https://digi.kans alliskirjasto.fi/teos/binding/2767605?page=37). Also\, the maps of Hispani a\, Greece\, Italy\, and another one of Asia minor\, are dense with spatia l information. Not surprisingly\, the smallest number of place names\, 80 in total\, was recorded on the map of Tabrobana insula (https://digi.kansa lliskirjasto.fi/teos/binding/2767605?page=59). Around 100 place names were also recorded on two maps depicting Sarmatia\, the regions today around a nd north from the Black Sea\, Azov Sea\, and Caspian Sea (https://digi.kan salliskirjasto.fi/teos/binding/2767605?page=39 and https://digi.kansallisk irjasto.fi/teos/binding/2767605?page=39). \n\nThe additional information o n maps\, which Van Duzer discusses in his article - the legends on e.g. an imals\, peoples\, or natural resources - were also saved on the bibliograp hical records of the maps\, in the field 500\, a general note. The number of these supplementary legends increases on maps depicting the African con tinent and India\; the highest number of the legends are in the map of Nor th Africa\, 25 in total\, with an average number of toponyms\, 310 (https: //digi.kansalliskirjasto.fi/teos/binding/2767605?page=35). As van Duzer ha s noticed\, this follows both the ancient and medieval traditions\, in whe re these areas are seen as sources for miracles and wonders. Generally\, t hose maps rich with toponyms often lack the legends. This is not surprisin g. The regions were considered important during the Ptolemy's time and the y were well known also to the 15th century reader. \n\nThese maps have not been georeferenced to correspond modern digital map bases\, but an effect ive way of studying the maps and their spatial information would be an ont ology which would preserve the historical dimension of named places. Enric hing the vocabulary with coordinates\, languages\, time periods\, and othe r linked information\, such as Wikidata and other thesauri would allow stu dies not limited only to spatial humanities but also for instance language studies or onomastics. \n\nToday\, the manuscript belongs to the Nordensk iöld Collection\, which was collected by scholar and explorer Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld in late 19th century. The collection consists of early carto graphy and maps\, and literature on geography\, history\, and travel. This collection provides plenty of opportunities for spatial humanities as wel l. \n\nBibliography:\nFederico Botana\, Learning Through Images in the It alian Renaissance. Illustrated Manuscripts and Education in Quattrocento F lorence. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2020.\nChet Van Duzer 2014\ , “Bring on the Monsters and Marvels: Non-Ptolemaic Legends on Manuscrip t Maps of Ptolemy’s Geography”\, in Viator 45: 303-334\; https://doi.o rg/10.1484/J.VIATOR.1.103923\n\nLinks:\nManuscript on the library's search service: https://kansalliskirjasto.finna.fi/Record/fikka.5621944\nDigital copy: http://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi-fd2023-00032457\nDigital Ptolemy Atlases c ollection: digi.kansalliskirjasto.fi/ptolemaios\nDetails for the APIs\, se e:\nhttps://api.finna.fi/swagger-ui/?url=%2Fapi%2Fv1%3Fswagger#/Record/get _record\nhttps://wiki.helsinki.fi/xwiki/bin/view/Comhis/Comhis/Interfaces% 20of%20digi.kansalliskirjasto.fi/ DTSTAMP:20260316T152556Z LOCATION:MG1/02.05 SUMMARY:Mapping the historicity of a place through its name – spatial inf ormation on 15th century manuscript maps - Anna Vuolanto URL:https://pretalx.com/spathum24/talk/HBMKQM/ END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR