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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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