Category: History

New Book Reviews now online

PDFs for Amy Ione’s Reviews of Biology in the Grid: Graphic Design and the Envisioning of Life and From Melies to New Media: Spectral Projection now online.

From Melies to New Media: Spectral Projections by Wendy Haslem. Intellect Press, Bristol, U.K., 2019. 201 pp., illus. Paper. ISBN: 978-1783209897. (Reviewed by Amy Ione, Leonardo, Vol. 54, No. 3. PDF

Biology in the Grid: Graphic Design and the Envisioning of Life by Phillip Thurtle. University of Minnesota Press, Posthurnanities Volume 46, Minneapolis, MN, 2018. ISBN: 978-1517902773; ISBN: 1517902770. (Reviewed by Amy Ione, Leonardo, Volume 53, Number 3, 2020, pp. 343-346) PDF

Christopher Tyler discusses three books published by Diatrope Press

Complete Illustrated Edition of the Life of Leonardo da Vinci, from Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects by Giorgio Vasari.. Edited with complete illustrations and annotations by Christopher W. Tyler. Color illustrations throughout. This is the only edition of Vasari’s Life of da Vinci that illustrates every single painting and sculpture mentioned by Vasari. Translated by Gaston du C. De Vere (The Medici Society/Macmillan: London, 1912-1915).

Portraits of his Daughters by Thomas Gainsborough commemorates two delightful sisters painted by their father, the famous 18th century English painter Thomas Gainsborough (1727-1788). The daughters are buried together at St Mary’s Church, Hanwell. In 1809, the rector of the Church, George Henry Glass, built the Hanwell cottage where a fountain inscribed in memory of two sisters makes an interesting link with the Gainsborough daughters. Illustrations on every page.

Parallel Alices: Alice through the Looking Glass of Eleanor of Aquitaine. New insights into historical roots of Alice in Wonderland. Examines the historical lines of the Alice books by Lewis Carroll through the historical sources at the time of Eleanor of Aquitaine. 170p. 6×9″ inches. Includes timelines, glossary, bibliography.

What does Berkeley on lockdown look like from the sky?

Berkeley in Place,’ a short film created for Berkeleyside by Pedal Born Pictures shows the city of Berkeley seen from the sky as its residents shelter in place in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. (More on Pedal Born Pictures: https://www.pedalbornpictures.com/)

Berkeleyside is the award-winning, independent news site in Berkeley, California, reporting on the extraordinary diversity of people, issues, events, food and environment in Berkeley and the East Bay.

There is also a similar video of Florence: DRONE | Firenze deserta Coronavirus: i monumenti del centro storico / Quarantine in Florence, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=zTJvE7BIZTo&feature=emb_logo

Now Online: Was Leonardo da Vinci’s World Map the First to Name America?

Was Leonardo da Vinci’s World Map the First to Name America? A Quincentennial Reappraisal

Leonardo da Vinci’s World Map, image

Abstract
In addition to his better known artistic, scientific and engineering talents, Leonardo da Vinci has an extensive reputation as a cartographer, drawing maps for a wide range of hydro-engineering projects for the rulers of Florence, Milan, Arezzo and the Vatican, amongst others. However, he is not generally acknowledged as authoring a world map (or mappamundi) spanning the globe, which was the domain of a few specialized cartographers of the era. Nevertheless, there is a world map among his papers in the Royal Library, Windsor, which has the correct overall configuration of the continents, including an ocean at the north pole and a continent at the south pole. Moreover, it has a unique cartographic projection onto eight spherical-geometry triangles that provide close to isometric projection throughout the globe.

This quincentennial anniversary year of his death in 1519 is an appropriate moment for a reappraisal of this contribution to global cartography. Although the authenticity of this world map has been questioned, there is an obscure page of his notebooks in the Codex Atlanticus containing a sketch of this precise form of global projection, tying him securely to its genesis. Moreover, the same notebook page contains sketches of eight other global projections known at that time (early C16th), from the Roman Ptolomaic conic section projection to Rossellli’s (1508) oval planispheric projection. This paper reassesses the dating of Da Vinci’s unique mappamundi to suggest that it predates that of Waldseemüller (1507), and may thus have been the first map to name both America and Florida.

Citation:
Tyler, CW. 2019. “Was Leonardo da Vinci’s World Map the First to Name America? A Quincentennial Reappraisal,” Calafia Journal, 2:7-12. PDF

Is Big History a step in the right direction?

From NPR: While most history courses start with the beginning of human civilization, roughly 10,000 years ago, Big History starts with the Big Bang. Humans don’t get mentioned until halfway into the course. It is exciting to hear that people are learning about history and science in tandem and I applaud the multidisciplinary as well. Like many historians, however, I wonder about the limited attention to human history in these courses. Parts 1 and 2 from NPR are below the break. Continue reading “Is Big History a step in the right direction?”

Video Review: The Loving Story

Reviewed by Amy Ione, The Diatrope Institute, Berkeley, CA 94704 USA
PDF

Ironically, as I was wondering where to begin this review today, I noticed a car with two bumper stickers matching the sentiments I was tossing around in my mind. One read: “Hate is easy. Love takes courage.” The other said: “Got Constitution?” Both relate to the details of the Loving case, in which the United States Supreme Court legalized interracial marriage [or, held laws against interracial marriage to be unconstitutional, (prompted by a suit brought against the Commonwealth of Virginia by Richard and Mildred Loving)]. The Lovings, the key figures in this case, are captured in The Loving Story video, a film produced by Nancy Buirski and Elisabeth Haviland James and available through Icarus Films.

Married in Washington, D.C. on June 2, 1958, Richard Loving and Mildred Jeter returned home to Virginia where their marriage was declared illegal because he was white and she was black and Native American. At that time, anti-miscegenation laws – laws against interracial marriage – existed in 16 states. These kinds of laws are a typical consequence of states rights in the United States, a mechanism that allows different geographical areas to reflect the mores (and biases) of specific parts of the country.

Continue reading “Video Review: The Loving Story”