Allegorical/fantasy/satirical maps

CARLA LOIS

The History of Cartography

The University of Chicago Press

Lugar: Chicago; Año: 2017;

Allegorical, fantasy and satirical maps had been very popular cartographic genres since Early Modernity, although they rose remarkably during the nineteenth century due to developments in printing and color technology, and the consequent rapid reduction in the cost of producing gravures, journals and books, which allowed the increase of their circulation to a broader audience. The increase in role of the printing press as a social power and opinion-maker turned the newspaper media into the Fourth Estate, ?a free and skeptical press operating beyond the control or influence of government, at once the measure and the guarantee of political liberty? (Heffernan, 261). Accordingly, this was an era that witnessed a massive upsurge in the popularity of illustrated satirical magazines across Europe?particularly in France, Germany and Britain?such as Le Charivari, first published in 1832 in France (Barron 2008, 458), and later the very popular US magazine Puck, originally published in German and English, and later just in English, from 1871 until 1918. Especially during the second half of the century, the spread of education both increased number of the potential readers and expanded the intellectual horizons that facilitated the interpretation of allegorical, fantasy and satirical maps.