Map of lake Balaton Area, Hungary

Introduction

 

On my former cartography projects I have copied old maps with different methods. This time I decided to go further and create a totally new map, following a drawing style of the certain period.

So far I still decided to restrict work so, that I will use a modern paper and ink, instead of trying to make them my self.

Source materials:

• Most important map base was 1641 printed and graved, Hungariae Regnum, by dutch Johannes Blaeu.
• List of castles and mansions in Vesprém province Hungary: Http://www.vpmegye.hu/turist/tematik/varak/varak_uk.htm
• Turist map of lake Balaton at scale 1:80 000 from 1989, which was the map I used to localize targets on to accurate places.
• Webpages which show how the lake Balaton has been drawn on to map during centuries: Http://konyvtar.fonyod.hu/balater.htm
• Castle of Csobanc http://www.csobancvar.hu
• Decorative printed maps of the 15^th to 18^th centuries, R.A.Skelton F.S.A, 1965
• Suomi-Latina-Suomi dictionary

Background

On late medieval period at 15th and 16th centuries, maps came more general because of invention of printing technique. Before that maps were very rare handmade pieces of art, which were kept as secret because of the political, economic and war reasons.

Most of the first maps were graved and printed in Italy and Holland, from where the skill spread among others in to Germany, France and England. So far I have not found any Hungarian cartographer.

Ground drawing of the maps was very difficult, because measure of the longitude were either impossible or very difficult. That’s how there was easily big mistakes in maps, and they were often copied by the competitors, with all the mistakes.

When maps came more popular, some big landowners placed an order for a map of their possession. On these cases map was of course decorated with a buyers Coat of Arms.

Aim

My purpose was to draw a map, from a relative small area, around the lake Balaton in Hungary, correct foreign cartographers mistakes, and which subscriber could have been a commandant of a castle of my SCA person in late 15^th century. Cartographer should have been Hungarian.

States of work

1) I designed a layout of the map in the computer screen, because that is the easiest method to change the position and size of the desired objects. After layout and scale of the map were suitable I started sketching with pencil.

2) First I sketched borders of the map it self and after that borders of Coat of Arms, pictures and frontispiece.

3) I sketched lake Balaton on to it location, correcting same time foreign cartographers mistakes. The biggest corrections were to move peninsula of Tihany on to right bank (which is western), and to move one river. The shape of the lake is mostly from Hungariae Regnum.

4) Next step was study which castles and mansions has been on the map area at late 15th century, and to localize them on to the map.

5) Map symbols were not standardized in medieval period, so I was forced to select a most suitable characters among a pile of hundreds of maps, which was able to draw with a selected nib.

6) Maps are normally drawn with a text in Latin. However I did not find a Latin version of the place name of two of the castles. So I tried to make from them a Latin version.

7) Scale of longitudes was copied from Hungariae Regnumista, and latitudes from Austria Archiducatus

8) I sketched a scheme and side picture of the castle of Csobánc.

9) I sketched a Coat of Arms.

10) Drawing of the map with ink and a smallest possible nib.

11) Erasure of the pencil lines and sketching of the text.

12) Writing text with ink and nib.

13) Colouring of the map with correct water colours.

Problems

The biggest problem in the process was to decide, how much I can correct a map drawn in Hungary, that it still comes up to outlook on life of Hungarian cartographer at late 15^th century. I got in to a solution where the objects close to a lake should be located in to a correct, or nearly correct places, but further from the lake mistakes can grow in linear.

This solution came finally, from the idea, that cartographer can easily locate objects in the bank of the lake, but when he looses the eye contact, the mistakes starts to grow.

The other big problem came from the names of the locations. Perfect study of the names of the places in medieval period in Hungarian and Latin is a task more suitable for person with better language skills than I have.

 Result

I am satisfied into the cartographic image accomplished. I believe that Hungarian cartographer could have drawn a map like this.

My calligraphic skills are still poor and not to ruin following projects, I got to study more beautiful drawing of plain text.