Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Maps, Maps and more Maps


While visiting Rome and exploring the Vatican I came across a hall called The Galleria delle Carte Geographiche that really caught my attention. As I walked through the glass doors all I could see was a golden tunnel with frescoes covering the sides. Egnizio Danti designed 40 the maps illustrate extreme detail and accuracy through the Galleria maps are hundreds of years old they still relate to modern day and show a timeless portrayal of cartography. They display a city or town a city or town from an Arial perspective including streets, buildings, rivers, parks hills and mountains. It is clear that I take such interest in these maps because I am dealing with cartography and maps as a decorative image in my own artwork. Researching confirmed for me the importance and timelessness of the invention of the map.



1 comment:

izzy cohen said...

Aphrodite as an Anthropomorphic Map

The goddess we call Aphrodite
Is not just an old Grecian deity.
The Phoenicians did make
Her a map. It's not fake.
Her body is cartograffiti.

The Punic war destroyed her face,
The Romans left nary a trace.
But her hair is still there,
In Sahara, that's where.
And her chin's a Tunisian place.

Mt. Atlas is her first verTebra.
Her backbone is now Gulf of Sidra.
Her heart is in Libya,
Her left leg, Somalia.
Her breast is in Chad wearing no bra.

The Greeks called her liver Egypt, an'
Her kidney was Biblical Goshen.
She's bent at her waist,
Now Misr-ably placed.
The Red Sea was her menstruation.

As a kid I did think the Red Sea
Was an English map typo: lost E,
From Reed Sea in Hebrew.
But that could not be true,
Mare Rubrum 'twas Latin, B.C.

Aphrodite with Hermes did sin,
We know this is true 'cause within
Her "snatch" we call Sinai
His "zaiyin" does still lie.
It's known as the desert of Zin.

Best regards,
Israel "izzy" Cohen
BPMaps moderator
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/BPMaps/