[CALMAP:119] reference question re art in cartography

From: Mary Larsgaard (mary@library.ucsb.edu)
Date: Thu Apr 12 2007 - 08:19:08 PDT

  • Next message: Rusty Brown: "[CALMAP:120] Re: [Milrefdesk] reference question re art in cartography"

    Does this sound familiar to anyone?

    "In the 70s I read a book a poetry by one of the South American poets.
    In this book (which I’ve not been able to locate since) he quoted a
    paragraph taken from I know not what that might have been called
    the Art of Cartography. It was written in prose form but had the
    feeling of poetry. It was about a small (presumably European, perhaps
    Medieval) town that had been dedicated to perfecting the art of
    cartography.
    They had gone so far in an effort to reach the ultimate levels of
    accuracy and
    scale that they had produced a map of their own locale that it literally
    covered the entire town inch by inch."

    I do remember Lewis Carroll's comment about
    the only really useful maps having a scale
    of 1:1, but the above doesn't ring a bell.

    Mary

    -- 
    Mary Lynette Larsgaard
    Director, Map Library
    Assistant Head, Map and Imagery Laboratory
    Davidson Library
    University of California, Santa Barbara
    Santa Barbara CA 93106-9010
    USA
    mary@library.ucsb.edu
    voice: 805/893-4049; 2779, reference desk
    fax: 805/893-8799
    



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