Topographical gnosis anyone?

The man who mapped the world=20

Unfold an Ordnance Survey map and you see the legacy
of a remarkable=20
16th-century cartographer. Travel writer Nicholas
Crane has written a=20
biography of Gerard Mercator, 'prince of geographers'



Maps codify the miracle of existence. And the man who
wrote the codes=20
for the maps we use today was Gerard Mercator, a
cobbler's son, born=20
500 years ago on a muddy floodplain in northern
Europe. In his own=20
time, Mercator was "the prince of modern geographers",
his depictions=20
of the planet and its regions unsurpassed in accuracy,
clarity and=20
consistency. More recently, he was crowned by the
American scholar=20
Robert W Karrow as "the first modern, scientific
cartographer".=20

Mercator was a humble man with a universal vision.
Where his=20
contemporaries had adopted a piecemeal approach to
cartography,=20
Mercator sought to wrap the world in systematic,
overlapping maps.=20
Along the way, he erected a number of historic
milestones. He=20
participated in the naming and the mapping of America,
he constructed=20
the two most important globes of the 16th century, and
the title of=20
his pioneering "modern geography", the Atlas, became
the standard=20
term for a volume of maps.=20

Mercator also devised a new method - a "projection" -
of converting=20
the spherical world into a two-dimensional map. Unfold
any Ordnance=20
Survey map of Britain and you will see a landscape
plotted on=20
Mercator's Projection. Click through the pages of
Nasa's website and=20
you will find it illustrated with maps of the solar
system, on=20
Mercator's Projection.=20

Mercator was born in 1512 and died in 1594. His world
was one of=20
military conflict, social upheaval, religious
revolution - and=20
geographical discovery. He was five years old when
Martin Luther=20
precipitated the Reformation, and 10 when the
survivors of the=20
world's first circumnavigation returned to Seville in
their leaking=20
caravel.=20

No better example is required of genius arising from
turmoil. He knew=20
poverty, plague, war, and persecution. He was
imprisoned by the=20
Inquisition, yet patronised by an Emperor. His life
was one of=20
brilliant breakthroughs and abrupt reversals. In its
telling, his is=20
the story of the poor boy made good; the pauper who
embraced the=20
world, found fame, faced death, yet triumphed through
fortitude.=20
Variously described by his peers as honest, calm,
candid, sincere and=20
peaceable, Mercator wore - and wears - an aura of
beatitude in=20
troubled times.=20

His attitude to his geographical calling was described
by his friend=20
and neighbour, Walter Ghim, as "indefatigable". Some
40 or so of=20
Mercator's letters have survived, together with
examples of virtually=20
all of his printed maps and globes. Astrolabes bearing
his initials=20
have turned up in Vienna and Brno, and the British
Library recently=20
bought a unique one-off atlas compiled in the 1570s by
Mercator for a=20
fellow humanist. The most important single source of
biographical raw=20
material is the short appreciation written in 1595 by
Walter Ghim.=20

Ghim's "remarkable and distinguished" friend spent the
first six=20
years of his life on the brink of poverty in a small
walled town on=20
the high road between Cologne and Antwerp. After a run
of bad=20
harvests, the family migrated west to the Low
Countries, and a=20
Flemish river port called Rupelmonde. The region's
mercantile=20
capital, Antwerp, lay just a couple of hours, walk
down the Schelde's=20
banks.=20

The Low Countries of the early 1500s was the most
densely populated=20
region in northern Europe. Passing Rupelmonde's
wharves were barges=20
bringing firewood from the Ardennes, silk and satin
from Mons and=20
Quesnay, wheat from Picardy.=20

The river was also a conduit of overseas news. On its
banks, a boy=20
could meet men who had sailed through the Pillars of
Hercules and=20
bumped against the ice floes of the East Sea. The
printed accounts of=20
Columbus and Vespucci were in wide circulation and
rumours must have=20
reached the Schelde concerning the Cabots, the father
and sons who=20
had twice sailed west for the English king, Henry VII.
Portuguese ships on the Schelde spread the stories of
Vasco da Gama,=20
whose astonishing voyage of 1497 had taken him around
the tip of=20
Africa and all the way to Calicut - and India.=20

The terrain of the Low Countries bred well-muscled
imaginations.=20
Hieronymus Bosch had died recently and Mercator's
contemporaries=20
included Brueghel and Albrecht D=FCrer (who visited
Antwerp in the=20
1520s), and the landscape painter, Joachim Patinir.
Mercator's=20
perception took form on these deltas and windy
interfluves. The views=20
he knew were invariably level, verticality was rare,
scales were=20
horizontal. There were no cliffs or peaks that could
offer another=20
dimension. The Low Countries existed in only two
dimensions. The=20
world Mercator knew was a plane as flat as a map.=20

Orphaned in his teens, Mercator was sent by his uncle
to school in=20
northern Brabant, and then to Louvain university. It
was here that he=20
met - and was tutored by - a frail, brilliant
mathematician called=20
Gemma Frisius, who had recently published a booklet -
"Of the=20
Principles of Astronomy and Cosmography, with
Instruction for the Use=20
of Globes, and Information on the World and on Islands
and Other=20
Places Recently Discovered" - which solved the
longitude problem. In=20
it, Gemma described how a mariner sailing with a
portable clock which=20
had been set to the time of the port of departure,
could always=20
calculate his longitude as long as the clock never
stopped.=20

Two years later, Gemma published the first printed
description=20
of "triangulation", the basis for cartographic
surveying. Using a=20
device called a "planimetrum", Gemma's surveyors could
map an entire=20
area by taking sightings on prominent points. And on
the plane=20
surface of the Low Countries, the Church had already
provided the=20
trinity of every triangle, in the form of towers. The
two-dimensional=20
geography of these floodplains permitted unimpeded
sight-lines, while=20
the long straight roads were ideal for measuring
base-lines. Decades=20
later, when the technique of triangulation reached
England, the first=20
surveys were conducted in the flatlands of Norfolk.=20

In covering the land with imaginary triangles, Gemma
had given=20
geographers a means of simplifying the surface they
were trying to=20
reduce. At its surveying stage, triangulation created
a mimetic map,=20
a pictograph laid over the landscape at a scale of
1:1. Seeing maps=20
as a selective tracing of reality was one of the
perceptive leaps=20
that helped Gemma's generation of Earth-modellers to
break free from=20
the imaginary worlds of the Middle Ages.=20

So conditions in the Low Countries were ripe for
cartographic=20
advance. To the jurist, Viglius van Aytta,
"Geographicus chartis"=20
enabled him "to know places, regions and people". At
court in=20
Brussels, Emperor Charles V pored over maps with
councillors. Maps=20
had a subversive role too, and in Germany,
cartographers under the=20
spell of Luther and Melanchthon, saw geography as the
route to=20
comprehending Creation; the pathway to God.=20

Out in no-man's-land between orthodox Catholicism and
breakaway=20
Lutheranism, Mercator regarded geography as an
exercise in=20
harmonisation, which required multiple aptitudes.
After university,=20
he embarked upon a frantic apprenticeship, engaging
himself in=20
philosophy and theology, learning mathematics,
copper-engraving,=20
instrument-making and mastering a new cursive script
called "italic",=20
whose clarity and compression were proving ideal for
lettering maps=20
and globes. (Later, Mercator published the first
manual of italic to=20
appear north of the Alps.)=20

Around 1536, he collaborated with Gemma on a printed
globe, and for=20
the following six years, his output was prodigious. In
1537, he=20
published his first map (of the Holy Land) and
followed this a year=20
later with a world map in the shape of an open heart.
A wall map of=20
Flanders followed, and then in in 1541, he produced
the largest=20
printed globe ever seen.=20

Disaster struck in 1542, when an army of wild
Gelderlanders burst=20
across the Maas and swept through Brabant burning and
looting.=20
Louvain was laid to siege, but spared after students
took to the=20
ramparts. In the aftermath, the Inquisition pounced,
and Mercator was=20
one of 42 suspected "Lutheran" heretics caught in a
round-up. He was=20
locked up in Rupelmonde castle, whose 17 towers
shadowed the river=20
port of his boyhood. Surviving letters convey
Mercator's desperate=20
plight as allies in the university pleaded for his
release. Of his co-
accused, two women were buried alive, another was
burned at the=20
stake, another beheaded, another banished. Unable to
find evi dence=20
against him, the Inquisition released Mercator after
seven months.=20

In the six years following what he referred to as his
"most unjust=20
persecution", Mercator produced just one celestial
globe, albeit=20
magnificent. In 1552, he left Louvain and the Low
Countries for=20
Duisburg, a small town in the Duchy of Cleves, whose
tolerant ruler=20
Wilhelm permitted Catholics and evangelists to worship
together in=20
relative harmony.=20

Away from Antwerp and its hectic hinterland, Mercator
became=20
something of a recluse. And in his seclusion on the
right bank of the=20
Rhine, he turned to the sequence of works which would
eventually=20
place him in the centre of the cartographic pantheon.
First, he=20
produced a huge and influential wall map of Europe,
and then a map of=20
the British Isles. Again, he suffered a setback. In
1564, aged 52, he=20
undertook a commission to map the strategically
positioned Duchy of=20
Lorraine. "This journey through Lorraine," recalled
Ghim, "gravely=20
imperilled his life and so weakened him that he came
very near to a=20
serious breakdown and mental derangement as a result
of his=20
terrifying experiences." Irritatingly, Ghim did not
elaborate on=20
these experiences. At the time, Lorraine was prey to
bands of German=20
mercenaries, and there had been an outbreak of plague
on the Duchy's=20
borders.=20

Spared again, Mercator revealed that he would embark
upon a project=20
of cosmic proportion. A multi-part cosmography, the
work would=20
include his own treatment of the Creation account, a
section on=20
astronomy, a chronology of world events and a "modern
geography",=20
which would eventually contain over 100 new maps. As a
prelude to the=20
great work, Mercator produced in 1569 an enormous
world map on a new=20
projection. In doing so, he solved the greatest
cartographic riddle=20
of the day: how could the course of a ship following a
constant=20
compass bearing be represented as a straight line on a
map which had=20
been constructed on a grid of latitude and longitude?=20

Mercator's solution was to progressively increase the
space between=20
his lines of latitude, away from the equator. The
effect was to=20
straighten the lines of constant compass bearing (also
known as rhumb=20
lines or loxodromes). Unfortunately, straightening the
rhumbs caused=20
progressive areal distortion towards the poles. At the
map's northern=20
and southern extremities, the polar regions occupied
the full width=20
of the map, while North America appeared to fill half
the=20
circumference of the world. To further confuse his
viewers, Mercator=20
had cobwebbed every ocean with intersecting
rectilinear rhumbs.=20

Few of Mercator's contemporaries understood what he
was up to,=20
despite the map's title explaining that it was
intended "for use in=20
navigation". Mercator knew that his projection was
unsuitable as an=20
areal description of the world, but it would be
several decades=20
before the map's true, navigational purpose would be
recognised. "He=20
does smile his face," wrote a young English playwright
called William=20
Shakespeare, "into more lynes than are in the new
Mappe with the=20
augmentation of the Indies."=20

Meanwhile, Mercator was marshalling and editing all
the geographical=20
data he needed for his modern regional maps of the
world. His sources=20
were wide-ranging and multitudinous: an imperial
physician in Vienna,=20
John Dee in London, his Antwerp friend and competitor
Abraham=20
Ortelius, the viceroy of Holstein. In his own,
comprehensive library,=20
he could turn to manuscript versions of Ptolemy, Marco
Polo and John=20
Mandeville.=20

Mercator was still working on these maps when - in
1590 - he suffered=20
a heart attack: 78 and partially paralysed, he
struggled on. "The=20
thing he resented most about his illness," recorded
Ghim, "was that=20
its prolongation cost him so much precious time." But
the great=20
cosmography that Mercator had already titled "Atlas"
would never be=20
finished. Four years after his stroke, he died, with
just over 100 of=20
the maps complete.=20

In the Atlas, Mercator had embodied the principles of
future=20
mapmaking: his italic lettering, his identical map
overlaps, his=20
complete coverage of regions at more than one scale,
his consistent=20
use of grids of latitude and longitude; his singular
editorial=20
control, were all adopted as cartographic standards.
Atlas, the=20
cosmography, became atlas, the (Oxford English
Dictionary) term=20
for "A collection of maps in a volume".=20

The projection assumed a life of its own. So powerful
a cartographic=20
tool did it become that Mercator the man became
subsumed by his own=20
device. By the 20th century, "Mercator's Projection"
had been adopted=20
by state cartographers to map the land that he'd named
"North=20
America". In 1938, Mercator's Projection was selected
by the Ordnance=20
Survey to map Britain anew. And in 1974, the American
cartographer=20
Alden P Colvocoresses used the Space Oblique Mercator
Projection for=20
the first satellite map of the USA.=20

When the Jet Propulsion Laboratory sent Mariner 8 and
Mariner 9 to=20
map Mars, they undertook their Martian cartography on
a standard=20
Mercator Projection and - naturally enough - the first
book of maps=20
describing the Red Planet was titled Atlas of Mars.=20

One by one, the mappable orbs of our solar system are
appearing on=20
the worldwide web, flattened for our screens according
to Mercator's=20
cartographic principles. "Synthetic aperture radar
mosaics" sent back=20
to Earth by the Magellan spacecraft have been used to
map Venus on=20
Mercator's Projection. Jupiter can be viewed on
Mercator's=20
Projection, and its volcanic moon Io, and Saturn's
largest moon,=20
Titan.=20

Mercator's Projection reconciled the sphere and the
plane, while his=20
Atlas enveloped the world with an integrated system of
maps. In the=20
midst of an era of tumult, he lived, and he engraved,
for global=20
harmony. And in his spatial masterworks, the cobbler's
boy from the=20
Low Countries inscribed his own, universal epitaph.=20

=B7 Nicholas Crane's book Mercator: the Man who Mapped
the Planet is=20
published by Weidenfeld and Nicolson this month.

=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D
Interested in more NonSense from the inscrutable Dr. Con and his secret M=
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