LE SYMPOSIUM INTERNATIONAL LE LIVRE. LA ROUMANIE. L ...

Similar and Differing – Mapping the Lower Danube... 607
re-arranging maps from their predecessors and colleagues. Among them
ortelius stands out prominently. For it was his idea to assemble maps and
projections in a collection later called Atlas (by Mercator). equally, it was
him who put these maps in a special, intelligent sequence by establishing
a context – the future historical Atlas – still in use in our days. 21 his
colleagues and followers used ortelius’s systematics. ortelius named
himself a cosmographus in 1563 when he joined the painters’ guild in
Antverp. It was him who claimed that “geography is the eye of history” 22 .
Besides the Atlases, regional maps came to be published separately,
too, and with increasing frequency. thus, after 1600 it becomes more and
more difficult to follow the genealogy of any single regional map.
Cantemir’s Lost Autograph map
At long last, scientific purposes in geography and mapping the known
world began to catch the interest of a larger public, hence commercial
cartographers and map-printers followed suit.
At the beginning of the 18 th century French cartographers took the lead,
because they were able to produce maps in tune with scientific progress
in geography and cartography. the Delisle family and especially J.-B.
d’Anville led the new field, trying to do research on local geographies and
not yet copy existing maps. each of them had been a member of the French
Académie des Sciences and two had been conferred the honorary title of a
“King’s Geographer”.
the French are known to have relied on geographic and travels literature,
among them missionaries’ reports on far away places. their international
contacts included among others Jesuits, the russian imperial court, and
German collaborator with the Academy in St. petersburg. 23 Descriptio
Moldaviae nicely fits into these new scientific aims and patterns.
the prussian royal Academy at Berlin followed similar purposes.
It directed its interests to the sciences in general, but lacked funds. this
may be one of the reasons why Cantemir’s Descriptio was not published
before Dimitrie Cantemir’s unexpected death ( † 1723). thereafter his son
Antioh tried to have his father’s scientific oeuvre edited, or at least to keep
21 SCHNEIDER, ute: einführung, 6 f. In: Abraham ortelius: Theatrum Orbis
Terrarum. Gedruckt zu nuermberg durch Johann Koler. Anno MDlxxII (Facsimile ed.).
Mit einer einführung und erläuterungen von ute Schneider. Darmstadt 2006.
22 SCHNEIDER, idem, 7.
23 http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guillaume_Delisle; http://en.wikipedia.org/
wiki/Guillaume_Delisle. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Baptiste_Bourguignon_
d%27Anville (11.05.2011).