The pre-Mercator nautical chart is an amazing artefact of unexpected complexity. Not because its construction relied on sophisticated methods but, on the contrary, owing to the limitations imposed by contemporary navigation, which prevented the adoption of the cartographic paradigms prescribed by Ptolemy on his Geography – that is – the use of latitudes and longitudes in chart making. Those limitations were the impossibility of determining longitude on board and the errors ca

The pre-Mercator nautical chart is an amazing artefact of unexpected complexity. Not because its construction relied on sophisticated methods but, on the contrary, owing to the limitations imposed by contemporary navigation, which prevented the adoption of the cartographic paradigms prescribed by Ptolemy on his Geography – that is – the use of latitudes and longitudes in chart making. Those limitations were the impossibility of determining longitude on board and the errors ca

The Interuniversity Centre for the History of Science and Technology (CIUHCT) invites paper proposals for the International Workshop on the Origin and Evolution of the Nautical Chart to be held on June 4-5, 2020, at the Instituto Hidrográfico, Lisbon, Portugal. ​ The event will be integrated within the activities of the European Research Council Project MEDEA-CHART, hosted by the Faculty of Sciences, University of Lisbon. Instructions for submission ​ All submissions are to b