Mappa Mundi
DIOGO VAZ PINTO
Words
PEDRO FERREIRA
Photography
One of the great advocates of the Portuguese Overseas Expansion, the second Viscount of Santarém was both an eminent historian and a pioneer in the study of ancient maps, coining the term "cartography" to boot. The atlas he bequeathed us is one of the most remarkable compilations of these instruments of navigation and wonder.
Among the various intellectual endeavours that Jorge Luis Borges undertook, one of the most successful was a short, parodic story, solemnly entitled "Of Exactitude in Science". He claimed it was an excerpt from a 17th-century travel book, which he quotes for our benefit and delight in "A Universal History of Infamy": . . . “In that Empire, the craft of Cartography attained such Perfection that the Map of a Single province covered the space of an entire City, and the Map of the Empire itself an entire Province. In the course of Time, these Extensive maps were found somehow wanting, and so the College of Cartographers evolved a Map of the Empire that was of the same Scale as the Empire and that coincided with it point for point. Less attentive to the Study of Cartography, succeeding Generations came to judge a map of such Magnitude cumbersome, and, not without Irreverence, they abandoned it to the Rigours of sun and Rain. In the western Deserts, tattered Fragments of the Map are still to be found, Sheltering an occasional Beast or beggar; in the whole Nation, no other relic is left of the Discipline of Geography."
Both absurd and perfect at the same time, this parody manages to immerse us in a form of tension that allows a rather grotesque idea to spawn a fanciful contemplation so instructive to our senses. And even more so in an era when, according to French philosopher and urbanist Paul Virilio, our future now indicates such an enclosure that geography itself is threatened.
This French thinker, who enjoyed inventing neologisms, came up with the term "geocide" to encapsulate his theory that one of the features of the present is the disappearance of places. This is coupled with geodiversity being replaced by a cyberspace that functions as a sixth continent, a "virtual colony" where we all live "a life of substitution". In the current "chronopolitics" - another of Virilio’s concepts -, time has prevailed over space. Consequently, unlike Fukuyama, who predicted the end of history, he decrees "the end of geography".
The above serves as a fitting introduction to a curious 18th-century figure: the second Viscount of Santarém. Born Manuel Francisco de Barros e Sousa de Mesquita de Macedo Leitão e Carvalhosa (1791-1856), he was one of the founders of ancient map study, even inventing the term "cartography". A historical figure who could easily inspire conspiracy fiction as astute and provocative as those by Borges, in addition to being a statesman and diplomat, he was one of those scholars who was absurdly committed to trumpeting the achievements of the Iberian navigators. This historian of the Discoveries played a decisive role in integrating and cross-referencing historical and cartographic themes, inspiring Portuguese and foreign authors to label him a geographer.
If this depiction allows us to imagine him as a charismatic character in one of those narratives woven by borrowing characters that turn rumours into legends, it is worth noting his understanding of how important image was to transmitting an otherwise inapprehensible reality. He recognised that every image is a form of map, in so much that it defines the boundaries of what we know. The world itself can only be conceptualised via the representation we make of it, through one of these terrestrial globes. This representation contains vast life, just like the image of a loved one fits inside a mirror or portrait. The viscount’s purpose was to elevate the historiography of Iberian expansion and the history of ancient and medieval geography to the level of philosophical discourse. To this end, he was fond of quoting Montesquieu, Voltaire and Robertson, among other key thinkers, in an effort to mark the importance and civilisational impact that our navigators’ achievements.
The Viscount of Santarém’s World Atlas is a wonderful compendium of maps from the 15th to 17th centuries, most unpublished or little known. They were compiled to prove the value of the Portuguese Overseas Expansion, namely on the west African coast, after Cape Bojador was rounded, and defend Portugal's colonial interests. These written and cartographic sources boast impressive visual detail that serves not only to illustrate what was conquered from the unknown, but also to capture and artistically recreate the remarkable nature of such places, nurturing our fascination for a new world’s strangeness.
Atlas do Visconde de Santarém | The Viscount of Santarém’s World Atlas — Lisbon: APL 1989 Facsimile edition Kindly provided by the APL Documentation and Archive Centre.