Thank you very much, Nick, for that generous introduction. It's a pleasure to be part of this conference.
I'll be speaking today as my titles slide indicates about the rise, persistence and surprising end of female personifications of the comments on BAPS,
which is to say, artistic representations of the continents as women on maps.
And I'll begin with talking about an earlier tradition, which is male representations of the continents,
specifically the sons of no us no as represented representatives of the continents.
So the Bible says that after the flood, after Noah's flood, no one divided the world.
Amongst his three sons.
And in the course of mediaeval interpretations of the Bible, the the air is allotted to Noah's three sons keen to be identified with the three cut.
And so the so-called old world, that is to say, Asia, Europe and Africa.
And we see the sons of Noah associated with those three moments in mediaeval map one day.
So here we have a ninth century map on Monday illustrating a manuscript of Isidore's at the Málaga Eye and zooming in.
We have a text here that says behold. Thus, the sons of Noah divided the world after the flood.
And we have Asia associated with notice sun, some in Europe with Yaphet and Africa with Chen.
And in other cases, we can see these sons of Noah represented graphically,
as in this famous mountain Monday by young men so which appears in his flirtatious score from a manuscript from the 15th century.
Here's Asia at the top of the map. We see Noah's Ark prominently represented.
And then we have some representing Asia. Yaphet representing Europe.
And Chad representing Africa. And this these associations of the three continents with the three sons of Nowhat continued.
We see that association here in a world map in Hartmans Shale's Chronic CRM, A14 93,
where we have the three sons of Noah looking in on the map from the borders.
So, yeah, I'll now talk about the appearance of female personifications of the cup on this in a cartographic context.
So these female personifications were developed in the 16th century.
And I'm going to look at here. And one of the first appearances of these personifications in a cartographic context.
Put an asterisks there with a citation below of a work in which I look at some earlier
appearances of female personifications of the contents in cartographic context.
But I'm really getting into the heart of the matter here.
The representations that had the greatest influence. And that would be on the title page of Abraham Morti leases,
the Endre Morbus Tara from which fifteen seventy, which is the first Alice in the modern sense of the word.
And we can see that Europe is represented as a woman at the top of the title page.
So in a hierarchical position, the top hierarchical position, she's seated,
clothed and has a globe and cross indicating European geographical knowledge and Christianity.
We have Asia represented as a woman clothed in whole holding a sensor.
The sensor is typical attribute of personifications of Asia.
Africa mostly naked. And so we're moving down the hierarchy of the continents.
And then we have America naked and lying on the ground. And the only partly discovered southern continent.
And because the southern condom was only partly known, it's represented as a bust rather than a complete human figure.
And if we move from a choreographically context, which is to say that the title page of an atlas into a map proper,
this is the earliest female personifications of comments that appear on a map.
Which is Petrus Plenteous is a world map in two hemispheres of fifteen ninety four.
And we see those representations in the four corners of the map.
And we'll go through those in order top to bottom and left to right.
So here's Europe with a cornucopia indicating economic abundance and symbols of Europe in power.
We can see. Books.
Astronomical instruments. And a gun. And we can see a battlefield in the distance.
And sailing ships. Asia is again depicted with a censor and a rhinoceros.
A typical attribute of personifications of Asia. And we see some exotic animals.
Not all of which actually pertain to Asia. The elephants, of course, do.
The giraffe does not.
In the lower left corner, we have actually two personifications Mexicana representing North America and Pear Awana representing South America.
Again, both as women and in both cases, we can see representations of cannibalism.
Of course, cannibalism was very typically ascribed to inhabitants of the new world in the 16th century.
And in the lower right, we have a personification of Africa with a crocodile, which is very typical,
and to the left personification of Magellanic, which is the southern continent.
So we see here the direct influence of the title page of TULIS is an Atlas.
This is really quite remarkable map from the early 17th century.
That actually represents the transition from the Sons of No.
Representing the continents to the female personifications that we've just seen.
And that is a world map by your article.
Tom Diocese sixty eight, the printed map that survives and only one example, which is in the Royal Geographical Society in London.
And the contrast on the map is not great. So just to orient ourselves, here is Africa.
South America and North America. And we'll zoom in on North America,
which we can see that the interior of the continent is occupied by a spectacularly large cartouche, some decorative sea.
And as I said, this scene represents precisely this transition from representing the continents by the sons of Noah to representing them with women.
So here we have a genealogical table of the descendants of Noah.
We have Noah himself and his three sons in these round cells surrounding the main scene.
So Noah and his sons are on the periphery of the scene.
And in the middle, we have the unification of the comments as women.
Each of the personifications carries a banner with some information about the continent that she represents.
And then there's also a few lines of firsts about that continent.
So here's Africa with her lines of verse, America and her lines of verse Europe in the centre, of course, with her banner and lines of first.
And a show with her banner headlines it first and as you can see, they're actually five personifications.
I believe that what we're to understand is that there are two personifications of America.
One for North America, one for South America. And that was probably done so as to generate this nice symmetry.
But in any case, this really is an absolutely remarkable image in that it very consciously
represents this transition from representing the continents by the sons of Noah,
which is to say by males to representing them as women.
So these female representations of the continents, these personifications of the continents,
continued to be depicted on maps throughout the 17th and even into the 18th century.
I'll just show a couple maps that will give us an idea of that long tradition.
So this is a large map of the Americas.
And on personifications of the continents, as women very commonly appeared on maps of the continents.
This map was hand coloured by the famous colours, Dirk Yonts one sentence.
I had this image courtesy of Barry Riverman Maps. It's the colouring is really spectacular.
We zoom in on the title Cartouche. We can see we have a personification of America with a feather headdress and skirt and gold,
which is of course associated with a new world and an alligator and various
other attributes of the new world or things that were common in the new world.
A parrot. Pineapples, bananas, more feathers.
An armadillo sugar cane. And so forth.
Moving on now to Allard's map of Africa.
So another Continental now map out another personification of that continent as a woman zooming in on the title Cartouche.
We have the personification of Africa with gold jewellery and a bow and arrow, of course.
Africa was an important source of gold and we have other images that are representative of Africa.
So pyramids, an ostrich, a lion, serpents and a crocodile.
So those images will have to suffice to represent this long tradition of depicting the contents as women en masse.
I now move forward to the disappearance of personifications, other comments from Mass in the late 18th and 19th centuries,
and the way you know, these representations on the comments.
As women transitioned off maps is very interesting. So first, I'll show a map on which they do appear.
By Roberta and D his map of seventeen forty three.
We zoom in at the top of the map. We can see the four personifications of content.
So we've we've come to recognise from their attributes attributes such as the feather headdress of America.
I now move on to another world map made some years later by the father and son now.
So Gil and D.A. and Roberta Valco D. Made in 1778.
And in this cartouche, we do not see the female personifications of the continents and get the attributes of the personifications.
Are there these attributes of the comments? Are there? So at the top of the map, we have some of the same attributes of Europe as we saw earlier,
including here, the bowl alluding to the myth if you roba and scientific instruments.
And then the bottom of the map on the left, we have symbols of Asia, Campbell, the umbrella that we saw,
the parasol that we saw earlier associated with the person on vacation of Asia and also Asian porcelain.
On the right. Symbols of America. The feathered headdress and bow and arrows that we saw associated with personifications of America earlier.
But here without the personification. And then in the bottom symbols of Africa, elephants, lions and coral.
And we see this same pattern in other maps.
That is to say, attributes of personifications without the personifications themselves.
And I think court to recognise it. The more elaborate decoration of maps was declining during this period.
And so the the these very elaborate images of these women representing the comments went away, but we still see these reminders of their presence.
So here in this map, we still have the feather headdress.
Bow, arrow and shield that in an earlier manner might have been worn by a personification of America.
And this is John John Views Map of the World from 1774.
If we zoom in on at the top of the map and first on the side of the map, representing the Americas on the left.
We have symbols, reveries, denting America the the typical feathered headdress, skirt bow club and palm tree again.
The clothing is something that a person of Caisson of America would have been wearing in the earlier map.
Now the personification is missing. I'm sorry. And on the right, we have an Asian dragon banner.
The sensor that we've often seen carried by a personification of Asia and the Islamic Crescent.
And on the right, we have European Canon Sail, a painting, pallet, sculpture.
So symbols of European technical process.
And again, in an earlier map, we might have seen a personification of Europe with these same items holding some of these same items.
And on the right, we have an African deep palm ivory, a spear and a lion skin.
And we began in an earlier map we might have seen a personification of Africa holding the spear, wearing the lion skin, holding the ivory.
Things of that nature. So we've had this this transition from male representations of the continents to female representations
of the continents in the 16th century and then the disappearance of the females themselves.
But there are attributes, the attributes of those personifications of the continents remain on the maps for some decades.
And it's just worth mentioning the hierarchy of the positioning of these vestiges,
of the personifications of this continent, of the colonies on this map.
So we have Europe and Asia near the centre,
which I think was understood as the more prestigious position with Africa and America at the edges on the periphery.
Thank you very much. Thank you, Chet. That's absolutely amazing tour through the personification of continents using women.
Absolutely terrific. I'd like to begin by referring to a comment in the chart which suggests that the Latin names of the continents are feminine,
suggesting that in classical antiquity, the personification of the continents was already regarded as female.
So wasn't the female personification of continents from the 16th century simply a return to the practises of antiquity?
Yes, it was.
So Europe, of course, is female and in the myth of Europe and the bull in artistic depictions of that myth, she is represented as a woman.
So, yes,
the Renaissance was the rebirth of classical studies and this systematic representation of the economies as women harkens back to classical antiquity,
of course. It's worth mentioning that Martin Volle similar in in suggesting the name America for the New World.
Specifically mentioned is the fact that he's proposing the feminine form of the word because the other continents have been represented as women.
So why do we see this transition from the male personification to female?
And. Following on from that. Why do you think the female images were eventually dispersed with dispensed with?
Yes, well, the fact that the condoms had been represented by the sons of Noah, there were three sons of no other words, no changing that.
The discovery of the fourth part of the world, which is to say the new world, entailed that a system of representation was no longer adequate.
So that was certainly at least one factor in this setting the setting aside
of the earlier representation of the comments by means of the sons of Noah.
With regard to the second part of your question.
I think there was a gradual decline in elaborate declaration of of mass in the late 17th, sorry, late 18th and 19th centuries.
And I think I mean,
I'm inclined to see the the gradual disappearance of female personifications from mass as as part of that decline in elaborate decoration,
for example, one can also see that Sea Monster has become less and less common en masse during the same period.
So the overall level of decoration on mass was in decline during this period.
You have any indication as to how the use of the consumer might have responded to the personification of the continents and female form?
That's a very good question. I don't I don't have data about how those images were perceived and and responded to in it.
We can see some adjustments in the hierarchy of the personifications on the continents over time.
So, for example, the as we saw on our Julius's title page, the personification of America was in a very low hierarchical position.
And in the late 18th and even early 19th century,
there are few images where America has sort of attained, if you will, of a higher hierarchical position.
But that's not quite the same as hearing someone's reaction to these depictions.
And I'm afraid I don't have information about that. OK.
Well, thanks ever so much chat after that horrific presentation.