An Update on the Facsimile(s) of the Borgia Map

My key rule—always look at the physical work if one possibly can—has been borne out, yet again. A few months ago, I went down the rabbit hole of the 1797 facsimile of the so-called Borgia Map, then recently acquired by Cardinal Stefano Borgia and now displayed in the Vatican. That rabbit hole took me to A. E. Nordenskiöld’s 1891/93 essay on the impression of the facsimile that he had acquired in Venice, and which he (wrongly) interpreted as a monotype printed in the early fifteenth-century. For background, and all necessary citations, see my post from last February: https://www.mappingasprocess.net/blog/2025/2/26/materiality-and-the-limits-of-internet-research-the-borgia-map-and-its-facsimiles.

I finally had a moment last Friday to stop by Harvard Map Collection to consult a physical copy of Nordenskiöld’s 1893 English-language memoir on the Borgia Map and the facsimile. This pamphlet included his second-generation facsimile of the impression of the facsimile, which he had previously published with the original, Swedish-language essay in 1891. In between, in 1892, the facsimile was acquired by Enriquetta Rylands. (Still not sure what the sequence here was: I presume that Nordenskiöld sold on the map to raise money; he was often strapped for cash!)

And my rule is once again born out: Nordenskiöld’s second-generation facsimile reveals a work that is subtly, but crucially, different from the same impression as it now exists in the John Rylands Library at the University of Manchester. (My thanks to Jonathan Rosenwasser for retrieving the pamphlet from long-term storage for my examination.)

The key problem is that, in the online scans of Nordenskiöld’s pamphlet, the Nordenskiöld’s facsimile appears folded:

(This is s structural failing. Because book scanners are automatic, turning pages by puffs of air, so they just turn pages, thick or thin; besides, even if the automatic systems were capable of imaging a fold-out separately, to do so would require the camera set-up to be adjusted for the unfolded fold-out and then reset before continuing with the regular pages. This is why special collections scanning projects are either mass-production, in which books of similar sizes are imaged together, minimizing the human labor involved, or bespoke, in which the photographer makes multiple adjustments to capture physically more complex works. Back in the fall of 1983, Penny Kaiserlian, then with the University of Chicago Press, responded to a question about the possibility of including fold outs in The History of Cartography with the comment (I paraphrase), “Fold outs are the F-word for publishers.” I think they are the F-word for book scanners, too!)

Here’s the facsimile unfolded, with the pamphlet cover included for scale:

By the way, this second-generation facsimile is a reduction, being 45cm in diameter, whereas the original facsimile (not an oxymoron) measured 64 cm.

If you have read the previous post, you’ll know that I got confused by the differences between the Rylands impression and other impressions of the 1797 facsimile, before I was able to determine that the precise area of difference was “infill”: there had been a small area of loss at the bottom limb of the Rylands impression, that had been restored with new paper and manuscript ink lines mimicking the lost content. That is, the restorer had compared the Rylands impression against another impression, to recreate what had been lost. (Restorers today might use a photograph from an intact work to infill areas of loss on the work they are restoring. Restorers will, of course, ask the work’s owner whether they wish the areas of loss to be infilled; OML’s policy is not to infill, but to preserve all evidence of the work’s physical history while stabilizing it. Restorers also do not go so far as to make the repaired portions look completely real; can’t have a restored work be confused for an original item in pristine condition.)

Anyway, I just wanted to know what the state of Nordenskiöld’s impression was before Enriquetta Rylands acquired it. Because, if the small area of loss had been infilled on the second-generation facsimile, then that would prove that Nordenskiöld’s argument re the printing of that facsimile was not just misguided, but utterly self-serving. He would have to have had access to another facsimile for the restoration to be made, and that would have completely undermine his arguments that the impression was a unique monotype made ca. 1430.

So, it’s great for Nordensiöld’s reputation that his second-generation facsimile showed the area of loss, just below the highly abraded men in the ship, unrestored: