This volume examines the exchange of geographical knowledge, especially maps, between the Christian European and the Arabic-Islamic worlds from the twelfth to the fifteenth century. Given the well-documented translation of scientific and philosophical texts in Muslim Spain beginning in the twelfth century, it is natural to ask whether geographical knowledge followed similar paths, and whether and how the geographical knowledge of the Muslim world influenced the maps made in Latin-reading Europe. The essays offer a mixed picture, with several chapters concluding that such transmission did not occur, but each study offers a glimpse into a complex world of textual and visual translation, citation, and quotation that does much to clarify the mechanisms for—and the obstacles to—sharing spatial representations and geographical knowledge across languages and cultures.
Introducing this collection of essays, Alfred Hiatt offers a primer on the geographical and spatial cultures of the Latin-Christian and Arabic-Islamic worlds and previous historiography. Hiatt sets an appropriately cautious tone, giving almost as much attention to difference and divergence as to transmission and cross-pollination.
Hiatt's chapter on climata deals with the strongest case for transmission. He notes that theoretical geography, closely tied to astronomy, could be quite easily repackaged for a Latin-speaking audience. Likewise, prior familiarity with the division of the world into climes and with Aristotle (for example, the text On the causes of the properties of the elements) aided reception. The effects of this knowledge seem modest, but if future research confirms that the De causis prompted a “rethinking of the world image” (71) that influenced several important fifteenth-century maps, as Hiatt suggests, the consequences could be substantial.
Hiatt's article on al-Idrīsī proposes that The Book of Roger, rather than being a hybrid product from and for multiple cultures, was a work intended for the Arabic-speaking community, deploying Arabic-Islamic geographical knowledge to portray King Roger II of Sicily as a learned and just ruler. Hiatt points to innovations in the work, such as using eyewitness testimony in the descriptions of Northern Europe and combining astronomical geography with a descriptive geography focused on regional mapping. Yet he argues that al-Idrisi primarily intended to add to the knowledge of Europe for readers within the Arabic-speaking world. In a similar vein, Jean-Charles Ducène's contribution focuses on the awareness of Ptolemy's Geography within the Arabic-speaking world, positing that Arabic knowledge was based mostly on citations and extracts rather than direct knowledge of the work itself, and concluding that Arabic sources played no role in transmitting Ptolemy's work to the Latin West.
Elly Dekker attends to the interest that Jewish astronomers in Muslim Spain took in Arabic-Islamic celestial globes and argues that the hemispherical star maps in a compilation of works by major Jewish astronomers (after 1391) likely derived from such a globe. She shows that the star maps do not provide a link between Jewish scholarship and the Latin West, but they do attest to the availability of Arabic celestial globes in Muslim Spain and to the close alignment of Jewish and Muslim astronomical interests.
Moving into the fourteenth century, Stefan Schröder argues convincingly that Marino Sanudo and Petrus Vesconte modeled their maps on what he calls an “Idrīsīan template” (157), but he perhaps stretches the available evidence in claiming that this model was selected to support Sanudo's strategic crusading goals. This is a topic that merits further consideration. Schröder misses the chance to explore David Woodward's suggestions that we see these maps as the fusion of world maps with portolan charts and to reassess our approach in light of our newer awareness of their Arabic-Islamic origins.
Emmanuelle Vagnon emphasizes the pluricultural sources, both verbal and visual, of the Catalan Atlas, but concludes that Cresques wove them into a European-centered view of the Mediterranean world and the Indian Ocean. Since the article came about before the publication of Katrin Kogman-Appel's Catalan Maps and Jewish Books: The Intellectual Profile of Elisha Ben Abraham Cresques (1325–1387) (2020), readers should also consult both works to appreciate the wide range of influences.
Hiatt and Yossef Rapoport conclude by calling for careful examination of maps and texts in their cultural contexts and explore not only the very real examples of cross-pollination but also the divergences between the two worlds at this volume's focus. Readers might wish that the volume included a fuller discussion of portolan charts, a greater centering of Jewish knowledge and experience (rather than framing Jewish scholars largely as intermediaries), and attention to some of the fifteenth-century maps that also show Arabic-Islamic influence. Nevertheless, each essay is rich in insights, and the volume will certainly fulfill the editor's intention to spark further research into this important topic.
