The Chart of European Material Culture Around 1500
This book project is a deliberate attempt to rethink the traditional view of early modern European visual and material culture by considering it within broader cultural, artistic, and economic connections, and by exploring what material and visual culture can reveal about the transfer of ideas, the growth of global trade, and the cultural and religious exchange between Europe, the Islamic world, sub-Saharan Africa, India, China, Japan, and the Americas. Conceived as a micro-history, the book focuses on a spectacular, hand-drawn parchment nautical chart made in Lisbon around 1500, known as the Cantino Map: heavily illustrated and annotated, it is a primary physical embodiment and visual repository of international contact, conflict, and exchange.
