(Un-)Sichtbare Routen

Abstract

ZusammenfassungThis paper focusses on intermedial translation processes in the production of Early Modern maps. Around 1700, the French geographers Claude and Guillaume Delisle collected travelogues from many different authors as sources for their maps of North America. The numerous drafts they created on the basis of these travelogues demonstrate how narrative texts were transformed for use as cartographic representations. As will become apparent, father and son Delisle did not simply translate individual pieces of geographical information into cartographic signs. Rather, they translated spatial conceptions in the form of itineraries by adapting them to the logic and specific characteristics of the medium of maps. In consequence, the itineraries and the actors who had travelled and described them became invisible for readers of maps.