MAP COLLECTION OF THE GEOGRAPHY SECTION OF THE FACULTY OF ARTS IN PRAGUE AND THE NATIONAL MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS MALTA
held an exhibition:
Siege maps: keeping memory safe
Location: the Faculty of Arts, Albertov 6, Prague 2, Map Collection, 2nd floor, tel.: 221 951 590, Map Collection
Opening date: 30 June 2016 at 14.00
Exhibition date: 1 July - 31 August 2016
Mon-Fri 9.00 - 17.00
Free admission
On 30 June 2016 at 14.00 the Maltese-Czech exhibition Siege maps: keeping memory safe was officially opened in the presence of distinguished guests. The exhibition was prepared by the National Museum of Fine Arts in Valletta and the Map Collection of the Geography Section of the Faculty of Science of Charles University in Prague in support of the joint nomination of the Siege Maps by G. F. Camozzi to the International Register of the UNESCO World Heritage Sites Programme. The application was submitted in May this year and the results will be known in June 2017.
The exhibition not only presents four versions of the Renaissance map of the Great Siege, created between May and September 1565, but also explains how the maps were created, who created them, where the differences between the different versions lie and describes the geographical and battle situations in detail. The author was Giovanni Francesco Camocio (1501-1575), a well-known Venetian publisher of books and maps in his time, who worked in the circle of the famous painter Titian. Like most Venetians, Camocio died of the plague just ten years later.
In May 1565, Malta was attacked by the Turkish army of Sultan Suleiman I, with 40,000 men and Dragut's pirates. Against them stood only 540 Maltese knights and 8,000 Maltese and European mercenaries. Despite being vastly outnumbered, the Turks were defeated after a four-month siege, mainly thanks to the bravery of the Maltese defenders and the help of the Sicilian viceroy Garcia de Toledo. Camocio's maps not only quickly and effectively informed Europe of the progress of the siege, but above all were the first to bring the much awaited news of the defeat of the Turks.
Three versions of the battle map are in the cartographic collections of the National Museum of Fine Arts in Malta. The second version was found by Dr. Joseph Schiro, thanks to digitized and published maps in the Map Collection of the Faculty of Fine Arts. It is currently the only surviving copy in Euro-American collections. Thus, after 450 years, the entire cycle of war coverage of the decisive Battle of Malta could be reassembled.
The exhibition is accompanied by original video presentations. Among them, visitors will be pleased to see a demonstration of the traditional craft of copperplate map making by the Maltese master Rainer Kalnbach (1928-). In addition, there is a comparison of the differences between the four versions of the map, and at the end visitors will see an animation of the battle produced by Jakub Bača, a student of the Department of Applied Geoinformatics and Cartography at the Faculty of Arts of Charles University.
The exhibition was prepared in support of the Czech-Maltese application to the International Register of the UNESCO Memory of the World Heritage Programme. The Register was established in 1997 and every two years unique parts of the world's documentary heritage are entered into it. The Czech Republic has already registered 5 successful entries in the Register. Of the 350 total inscribed monuments, only 4% are cartographic documents. The application was submitted in May this year and the results will be known in June 2017.
For more information, please contact the co-author of the project, PhDr. Eva Novotná, novotn48@natur.cuni.cz or the co-author of the Czech version, Ing. Lada Fenclová, lada.nevoralova@natur.cuni.cz, tel. +420 221 951 967