The Self-Made Map: Cartographic Writing in Early Modern France

In this wide-ranging work, Tom Conley demonstrates that a "new cartographic impulse" during the French Renaissance gave rise to a new sense of being, one defined in part by the relationship between self and space. Conley traces the explosion of interest in mapmaking with the discovery of the New World, and discusses the commensurate rise of cartographic writing-writing that "holds, penetrates, delineates, and explores space." Richly illustrated throughout, The Self-Made Map combines art, geography, history, literature, and printing to chart a clear historical transformation, along the way linking geographical discoveries, printing processes, and political awareness.

Table of Contents:
Contents List of Illustrations Preface and Acknowledgments Introduction Cartographic Writing-The Relation to the Unknown-The Perspectival Object-Pictograms-The Signature-Approaches 1. Franco-Burgundian Backgrounds Some Figural Relations with Space: A French Model: Jean Fouquet-Wit and Rivalry: The Portrait of Guillaume Juvénal des Oursins-A Nascent Grid of Narrative-A Poetic map: Jean Molinet 2. The Letter and the Grid: Geoffroy Tory Three Allegories-A Fourth Allegory: Architecture, Letter, and Nation- Betrayals of Diagram and Text-A Well-Joined Marquetry-A Cartography of the Letter 3. Oronce Finé: A Well-Rounded Signature A Craftsman's Adolescence-The Finé Animal: A Face and a Strategy (Voyage à la terre sainte)-From Signature to Self-Portrait-From Portrait to Self-Made Identity: The Protomathesis-The Heart of the World: The cordiform Maps-Gallia and the Topographical Map in Le sphere du monde-The Analogical Style 4. Words à la Carte: A Rabelaisian Map Beginnings-Tourism-The Itinerary: Notable Places-Encounters of the First Kind-Reprieve: Spaces to Listen-A City Named Parr rys-Words à la Carte-Rabelais and the "Cordiform" Text 5. An Insular Moment: From Cosmography to Ethnography A Topography of the Face-The Isolario and Cosmography-André Thevet's Staging of Alterity-Some Fortunes of La cosmographie universelle and Its Ethnography 6. An Atlas Evolves: Maurice Bouguereau, Le theater françoys The Idea of a National Atlas-Iconography: The Title Page and Opening Pages-Bouguereau's Maps-Maps and Texts Compared: Nicolaï and Symeone-An Atlas of Rivers: Chorography, Potamography, and the Image of a Nation-The Signature: Bouguereau's Vanishing Point 7. Montaigne: A Political Geography of the Self A Book Engineered-The Book as a Cardinal Form-The Politics of "Des cannibals"-Fumée's Gómara and "Des coches" 8. La Poelinière and Descartes: Signatures in Perspective The Map of Les trois mondes-The Cartesian Map-The Perspectival Signature: Between Center and Margin-A Saturation of Names 9. Conclusion Notes Works Cited Index

About the Author :
Tom Conley is Lowell Professor of Romance Languages and Literatures and chair of visual and environmental studies at Harvard University.

Review :
“This book is a formidable display of interdisciplinary learning; it offers close and provocative new readings of works by writers unfamiliar and familiar.” -Modern Language Quarterly “Relating cartography to early modern self-fashioning, Conley provides the concept of ‘the self-made map’ with an extensive graphic material framework that promises to reshape how his readers see early-modern books and maps as material signifiers of self and nation.” -Tim Murray, Cornell University “Conley has written an interesting book, eclectic in scope, concerning the impact of a new cartographic impulse on literature during the Renaissance in France. . . . The book is handsomely produced and contains numerous illustrations . . . A meaningful addition to the history of cartography.” -Choice