Chet A. Van Duzer Knihy

From dragons and serpents to many-armed beasts, sea monsters have long terrified mariners, inspiring tall tales and captivating imaginations across cultures. These creatures have adorned maps, marking unexplored territories and areas shrouded in mystery. The sea monsters depicted on medieval and Renaissance maps are not only visually striking but also rich in historical significance. Despite their allure, they have received insufficient scholarly attention. This work delves into significant examples of sea monsters on European maps from the tenth to the sixteenth century, offering an analysis of their representation and the cartographers behind them. Chet Van Duzer explores the earliest mappaemundi featuring these creatures and traces their evolution through the centuries. Along the way, he illuminates the sources, influences, and techniques employed by the artists. This beautifully designed visual reference serves as a crucial contribution to the fields of cartography, art, and zoological illustration, while also enriching the understanding of the geography of the "marvelous" and Western perceptions of the ocean.

This book presents groundbreaking new research on a fifteenth-century world map by Henricus Martellus, c. 1491, now at Yale. The importance of the map had long been suspected, but it was essentially unstudiable because the texts on it had faded to illegibility. Multispectral imaging of the map, performed with NEH support in 2014, rendered its texts legible for the first time, leading to renewed study of the map by the author. This volume provides transcriptions, translations, and commentary on the Latin texts on the map, particularly their sources, as well as the place names in several regions. This leads to a demonstration of a very close relationship between the Martellus map and Martin Waldseemüller’s famous map of 1507. One of the most exciting discoveries on the map is in the hinterlands of southern Africa. The information there comes from African sources; the map is thus a unique and supremely important document regarding African cartography in the fifteenth century. This book is essential reading for digital humanitarians and historians of cartography.

Despite extensive studies on Homer's techniques of formulaic composition, thus far the importance of duality in the construction of the Iliad and Odyssey has gone unnoticed. This study demonstrates that duality pervades the epics, from dual magical devices that protect Homeric heroes, to the dual structures upon which the poems are built. By elucidating patterns in Homer's use of duality, the study develops new insights into the methods of Homeric composition, and powerful new tools for the interpretation of his work.