Representations
Mapping Juan Madrid: Developing a Digital Tool to Map Texts to Real Spaces
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Malcolm Compitello
This project documents efforts to develop a tool to machine read texts and automate the process of mapping the spaces represented in literary works to real time maps of them. The goal is a tool that will finally allow those who work with the transformations of real spaces (urbanists, cultural geographers, and others) and imaginary projections of real spaces (students of cultural studies and literature and film) to see exactly how real spatial transformations mediate cultural production. The project tests the efficacity of the tool by mapping the works of Juan Madrid. Over a span of almost forty years this author penned more than thirty narrative texts inextricably bound up in the transformations of the city of that period of time. In addition to what new information can be specifically gleaned about the author’s texts from information that the mapping tool reveals, if provides a useful prototype for other scholars. It will allow then to map the work of other authors, in Spain and around the globe. Sharing this information has powerful research and pedagogical implications including the ability to facilitate the production of interactive digital editions of many works.
The European Tour of Cosimo III of Medici: An Insight of the Portuguese Built Environment through Pier Maria Baldi’s Drawings
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session João Cabeleira
Considering historical iconography and written records of journeys as a fundamental source to the acknowledge of the spatial and cultural heritage (namely its places, people and interactions), this communication aims to unveil the Portuguese seventeenth century spatial and cultural framework through Pier Maria Baldi’s and Lorenzo Magalotti’s eyes, which reported the European tour undertaken by Cosimo III of Medici. Between 1668 and 1669 the Tuscan prince, future Grand Duke Cosimo III, embarked on a journey through Spain, Portugal, Ireland, England, Holland, Flanders and France. A trip that comprised political, diplomatic, and economic purposes, in addition to the prince’s cultural and political apprenticeship. If the official travel diary, written by Magalotti, describes visited places and people with whom the prince interacted, the graphic records by Baldi, preserved in the Laurentian Library in Florence, reveal a vision of the Portuguese urban fabric (Elvas, Évora, Lisbon, Santarém, Coimbra, Porto, Viana, etc.) as well as an image of its rural areas (Aldeia Galega, Via Longa, Grijó, Moreira da Maia, etc.). Both indispensable documents in order to acknowledge a piece of Europe’s identity puzzle, linking its nations, cultures, and agents. As such, and following Cosimo’s path on Portuguese land, we are guided through the drawn Vedute of Pier Maria Baldi, aiming to explore a specific stratum of the Portuguese constructed palimpsest, a vision Portugal’s constructed environment during the seventeenth century. However, Baldi's vision, is not an objective record, revealing simultaneously facts of the visited places along with shapes of the author’s cultural context.
Understanding the Coastal Landscape Through Sardines and Kelp
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Daniel Duarte Pereira, André Tavares
Grounded on the broader objectives of the research project "The Sea and the Shore, Architecture and Marine Hubs: The Impact of Sea Life on the Built Environment" (Lab2Pt / CIIMAR), this paper traces the complex relationship that exists between marine biology and the constructed environment through the lens of two marine resources in their association with an anthropic coastal activity: the sardine, associated with the canning industry that developed along the XX century in Matosinhos Sul in the north of Portugal; and the kelp seaweed, used as a natural fertilizer at the Masseiras fields — a specific agricultural system developed over dunes existing between A-Ver-o-Mar, in Póvoa de Varzim and Apúlia, in Esposende, Portugal. Based on a preliminary collection of documents and fieldwork, the objective of this paper is to establish the bibliographic, spatial, and temporal foundations that might allow for a deeper reading of the reciprocity between marine resources and the built environment. The paper begins by characterizing the two ecosystems under study: the sea, from the perspective of a habitat with dynamics and specific geophysical characteristics that support the life of the two marine species target in this work; and the coast, from the perspective of the economic, social, and urban factors that motivate the construction of two specific landscapes highly dependent on sea resources. Finally, we consider some possibilities of a cross-reading of the presented topic through cartographies and timelines.
