Something Borrowed, Something New. The Strait of Magellan in a late 17th century French Travel Account

MARTINEZ, CAROLINA

Berlín

Simposio; VII ISHMap International Symposium; 2023

Max Planck Institute - International Society for the History of the Map

This presentation aims to explore the processes of circulation, appropriation and copying of maps in the specific case of the map of the Strait of Magellan engraved by Charles Inselin and included in François Froger’s Relation d’un voyage: fait en 1695, 1696 et 1697 aux côtes d’Afrique, détroit de Magellan, Brésil, Cayenne et isles Antilles, par une escadre des vaisseaux du roy, commandée par M. De Gennes, published by Nicolas de Fer, in Paris, in 1698. It proposes, in the first place, that the relevance granted to the traveler’s on-the-ground experience did not necessarily invalidate the appropriation and adaptation of cartographic knowledge and material produced by agents in other political (and imperial) contexts. At the same time, the analysis of Froger’s travel account and of the maps and engravings it contains shows that the edition of travel literature in the late 17th century was the result of complex processes of interaction. At times, the overlapping agency of publishers, engravers, cartographers and travelers resulted in tensions, expressed (with more or less subtlety) along the travel book. In the case of Froger’s Relation, the tensions between text and image (i.e. the textual descriptions of the Strait and its inhabitants and the cartographic images that accompanied them), as well as the delicate balance between the importance given to the traveler’s on-site experience and the elusive reference to previous accounts or sources, arise particular interest. The presentation will focus on the maps and descriptions of the Strait included in Froger’s travel account, which will be compared with the map of the Strait engraved by Inselin and included in Nicolas de Fer’s Atlas curieux ou Le Monde Représenté dans des Cartes Générales et Particulières du Ciel et de la Térre (1700) as well as with the different printed versions of John Narborough’s map of the area, which gained widespread circulation in spite of the English’s unsuccessful attempt to raid the Spanish ports along America’s Pacific coast between 1669 and 1671.