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Jews and the Natural Sciences: Cartography/Geography

Understanding science in the widest possible sense, this guide offers resources for how Jews investigate, react to, and engage with the physical universe.

Cartography

  • Abraham, Cresques
    http://www.cresquesproject.net/
     
  • Abraham, Cresques
    Atlas de cartes marines
    http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b55002481n/f18.image

  • Arad, Pnina    “Memory, Identity and Aspiration: Early Modern Jewish Maps of the Promised Land,” Imago mundi.  The International Journal for the History of Cartography 69 (2017) 52-71
    http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/03085694.2017.1242840?needAccess=true

  • Brodsky, Harold
    “The seventeenth-century Haggadah map of Abraham Bar Yaacov,” Jewish Art 19-20 (1993/4) 148-57
    Katz Center – Stacks. N7415 .J68
    Fine Arts Library. N7415 .J68

  • Delano-Smith, Catherine and Mayer I. Gruber
    “Rashi’s legacy:  Maps of the Holy Land,” Map Collector 59 (summer 1992) 30-35
    Available at Princeton University, et al. but does not circulate

  • Farissol, Abraham ben Mordecai
    איגרת אורחות עולם  (Italy, after 1525)  
    First mention of Columbus in a Hebrew text.  Speaks about עולם חדש    without reference to Vespucci, but he does mention Columbus, and he inserts the first map of the New World in a Hebrew book. 
    Rare Book & Manuscript Library - Manuscripts. LJS 499

  • Farissol, Abraham ben Mordecai
    Igereth orḥoṭh 'olam. id est, Itinera mundi, sic dicta nempe Cosmographia
    Oxonii, E theatro Sheldoniano, impensis Henrici Bonwick, 1691
    Katz Center - Rare Book Room. G95 .F36 1691

  • Gruber, Mayer Irwin
    “The sources of Rashi’s Cartography,” pp. 61-67 in, Letters and Texts in Jewish History (Hamilton, NZ:  Outrigger Publishers, 1999) new and expanded, ed. Norman Simms
    Katz Center - Stacks. DS120 .L48 1998

  • Hyde, Thomas   איגרת אורחות עולם, id est, Itinera mundi : sic dicta nempe cosmographia  [Hebrew and Latin in parallel columns. Notes in Latin, with many passages in Greek, Arabic, and other exotic types; and annotation of Abraham Ben Mordechai Farissol, Iggeret Orhot Olam; appeared in at least nine Hebrew editions, of which Hyde’s was perhaps the most influential.]
    Oxonii : E Theatro Sheldoniano, impensis Henrici Bonwick, 1691
    Katz Center - Rare Book Room. G95 .F36 1691
    http://eebo.chadwyck.com/search/full_rec?SOURCE=pgimages.cfg&ACTION=ByID&ID=V44310

  • Kayserling, Meyer
    Christopher Columbus and the Participation of the Jews in the Spanish and Portuguese Discoveries
    Longmans, Green, 1894
    Katz Center - Stacks. E111.K23 E5 1928
    Katz Center - Rare Book Americana. E111 .K23 1894
    Van Pelt Library. E111 .K23 1968
    https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=coo1.ark:/13960/t17m0tq94;view=1up;seq=7

  • Kedar, Benjamin Z.
    “Rashi’s map of the land of Canaan, ca. 1100, and its cartographic background,” pp. 155-168 in, Cartography in Antiquity and the Middle Ages: Fresh Perspectives, New Methods (Leiden ; Boston : Brill, 2008) edd. Richard J.A. Talbert and Richard W. Unger
    Van Pelt Library. GA205 .C37 2008
    https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/upenn-ebooks/detail.action?docID=3004260#

  • Kogman-Appel, Katrin
    “ ‘Elisha ben Abraham, Known as Cresques’:  Scribe, Illuminator and Mapmaker in Fourteenth-Century Mallorca,” Ars Judaica – the Bar-Ilan journal of Jewish Art 10 (2014) 27-36
    Katz Center – Stacks.  N7415.A76

  • Landau, Israel
    איגרת אורחות עולם   [Hyde’s edition of Farissol, re-edited and supplemented with discussions and illustrations of, among other things, skindiving in Calcutta and whaling]
    Prague:  Elsenwanger, 1793
    Katz Center - Rare Book Miniature. G95 .F36 1793 c.1 [pts. 1-3, in 1 vol]
    Katz Center - Rare Book Miniature. G95 .F36 1793 c.2 [pt 1 only]

  • Lelli, Fabrizio
    “Messianic Expectations and Portuguese Geographical Discoveries:  Yohanan Alemanno’s Renaissance curiosity,” Cadernos de Estudos Sefarditas 7 (2007) 163-184
    Library at the Katz Center - Stacks. DS135.P7 C334
    Van Pelt Library. DS135.P7 C334

  • Maier, Johann
    “The Relevance of Geography for the Jewish Religion,” pp. 136-158 in, Religious Confessions and the Sciences in the Sixteenth Century (Leiden ; Boston : Brill, 2001) edd. Jürgen Helm and Annette Winkelmann
    Katz Center - Stacks. BL240.3 .R45 2001
    Van Pelt Library. BL240.3 .R45 2001

  • Narkiss, Bezalel
    “Rashi and his Maps,” [Hebrew] pp. 435-439 in,     ספר זאב וילנאי      = Zev Vilnay's jubilee volume (Jerusalem : Ariel, c1984-c1987) ed. Eli Schiller
    Katz Center - Stacks. BM42.V556 S345 1984 vol. vi
    Van Pelt Library. DS102.4 .S46 1984

  • Ofer, Yosef
    “The Maps of the Land of Israel in Rashi’s Commentary on the Torah and the status of Ms. Leipzig 1,” Tarbiz 76 (2007) 435-443 (Hebrew)
    Katz Center - Periodicals Gallery. DS101 .T35
    Van Pelt Library. DS101 .T35
    http://www.jstor.org/stable/23605759

  • Ofer, Yosef
    “A Diagram of the Open Land of the Levite Cities in Nahmanides' Commentary on the Torah,” The Jewish Quarterly Review (2009) 271-283, 301
    Katz Center - Periodicals Gallery. DS101 .J48
    Research Annex (LIBRA).  DS101 .J48

  • Rubin, Rehav
    “A Sixteenth-Century Hebrew Map from Mantua,” Imago Mundi:  The International Journal for the History of Cartography 62 (2010) 30-45
    http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/03085690903319259?needAccess=true

  • Rubin, Rehav
    “Hug Haaretz by Rabbi Solomon of Chelm: an Early Geographical Treatise and its sources,” Aleph: Historical Studies in Science and Judaism 8 (2008) 131-147
    Katz Center - Stacks. BM538.S3 A447
    Van Pelt Library. BM538.S3 A447
    https://muse.jhu.edu/article/247257/pdf

  • Ruderman, David B.
    The World of a Renaissance Jew: The Life and Thought of Abraham ben Mordecai Farissol
    Cincinnati : Hebrew Union College Press ; New York : Distributed by KTAV Pub. House, 1981
    Katz Center - Stacks. BM755.F32 R83 1981
    Van Pelt Library. BM755.F32 R83
    http://hdl.library.upenn.edu/1017.12/1832872

  • Sed-Rajna, Gabrielle
    “Some Further Data on Rashi’s Diagrams to His Commentary on the Bible,” Jewish Studies Quarterly 1 (1993-4) 149-57
    Katz Center - Periodicals Gallery. BM70 .J485
    Van Pelt Library. BM70 .J485
    http://www.jstor.org/stable/40753094

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