Ferraris, the legend

At the end of the eighteenth century, a large-scale map of the Austrian Netherlands and the Prince-Bishopric of Liege was manufactured, covering more or less the current territory of Belgium. The work for this Carte de Cabinet was carried out by artillerists under the guidance of count Joseph de Ferraris, who was commissioned for the task by the Habsburg government. At the time that the map was designed, no modern legend was included. This paper tries to fill that gap by presenting a legend that was constructed more systematically than any of its predecessors. It is based on the structure of the legend of the Topographic Map of Belgium and the CORINE land cover map, making it an easy-to-use tool for modern researchers. The problems encountered during the development of the legend are described, and the link between the Carte de Cabinet and eighteenth-century French cartography as well as with cartographic manuals is also discussed

Digital representation of historical globes : methods to make 3D and pseudo-3D models of sixteenth century Mercator globes

In this paper, the construction of digital representations of a terrestrial and celestial globe will be discussed. Virtual digital (3D) models play an important role in recent research and publications on cultural heritage. The globes discussed in this paper were made by Gerardus Mercator (1512-1594) in 1541 and 1551. Four techniques for the digital representation are discussed and analysed, all using high-resolution photographs of the globes. These photographs were taken under studio conditions in order to get equal lighting and to avoid unwanted light spots. These lighting conditions are important, since the globes have a highly reflective varnish covering. Processing these images using structure from motion, georeferencing of separate scenes and the combination of the photographs with terrestrial laser scanning data results in true 3D representations of the globes. Besides, pseudo-3D models of these globes were generated using dynamic imaging, which is an extensively used technique for visualisations over the Internet. The four techniques and the consequent results are compared on geometric and radiometric quality, with a special focus on their usefulness for distribution and visualisation during an exhibition in honour of the five hundredth birthday of Gerardus Mercator

A field trip to Ethiopia : an overview how to integrate Ethiopia in geography education in Belgium

In April 2014, the Flemish geography teachers association organized an excursion to North-Ethiopia. The trip was meant to be an introduction to Ethiopia, in accordance with the geography goals in the secondary school curriculum. The trip was made under the guidance of Jan Nyssen from Ghent University. Professor Nyssen has strong ties with the country and he made an effort in order to show the teachers special places and to provide well documented information about the country. It soon became clear that Ethiopia was extremely interesting regarding many topics and goals which have to be achieved by secondary school students. Information about Ethiopia can be utilized in a lot of different themes. Some of them, such as agriculture, can be studied in-depth while using the gathered information during the field trip. Other subjects such as land degradation, urbanization and plate tectonics will - from now on – also be documented and explained thoroughly. In other topics like local customs, urbanization and climate (zenith of the sun), Ethiopia can be mentioned as an example. In this poster, we will discuss some case studies which are implemented based on the environment and the social aspects of this country. While applying the ‘Ethiopian experience’, objectives can be attained more easily to the satisfaction of the teachers and encourage the interest among the students. Visiting Ethiopia is an absolute must for every geography teacher

How accurate can a legend be?: the case of the Ferraris map

At the end of the 18th century a large-scaled map of the Austrian Netherlands and the Prince-Bishopric of Liège was manufactured, covering more or less the current territory of Belgium. The work for this Carte de Cabinet was carried out by artillerists under guidance of count Joseph de Ferraris, who was commissioned for the task by the Habsburg government. Three copies were made: one for Empress Maria Theresia of Austria, one for Charles de Lorraine, the governor of the Austrian Netherlands, and one for the Chancellery of Court and Nation in Vienna which consisted of the original sheets created in the field that were touched up. Because the Carte de Cabinet was realized just before the drastic landscape changes associated with the Industrial Revolution, its value for historic landscape research is enormous. In the 18th century only a concise written legend was added to the map, which constitutes a problem for modern researchers who aren’t familiar with 18th century semiotics. Three attempts to fill this gap were published in the past (1965, 2006, 2009). All of them were based on an examination of the copy of Charles de Lorraine, but this research was never done in a systematic way and none of the legends have a clear structure. The general objective of our research was to create a new, systematically assembled legend, which can serve as a valuable and easy-to-use tool for modern researchers. To this end, at least one quarter of each of the 275 sheets comprising the copy of Charles de Lorraine was examined. Our presentation here will focus on the problems encountered during the draw-up of the legend. These were linked to the fact that the 18th century cartographic script wasn’t as standardized as a present-day cartographer would expect, although the semiotics of the Carte de Cabinet were considered to be very precise at the time the map was made. We will take a closer look at the production process of the Carte de Cabinet to better understand where this ambiguity stems from and illustrate it by showing examples from the map