Julia Lillie: 16th Century Cologne as a Center of Map Production and Matthias Quad’s Role in Disseminating Knowledge of Geography.
In the late sixteenth century, Protestant artists fleeing religious persecution in the Southern Netherlands emigrated to German cities, seeking toleration and safety. Although it was staunchly Catholic, the city council of Cologne temporarily accepted some of these refugees, and the incoming group changed the landscape of print culture in their adopted home. Bringing engraving skills and experience in map printing often gained in the sophisticated workshops of Antwerp, these exiled artisans created a new center of map production in Cologne, collaborating with local Catholic publishers in the process. In this paper I investigate the group’s activity from 1570 to 1600, focusing on the little-known engraver-author Matthias Quad. Through the publication of inexpensive, small-format atlases, traveler’s guide books, and translations of existing scholarship – all frequently in the vernacular – Quad attempted to spread new knowledge of both global and local geography to German audiences. We will examine objects from the Newberry Library collection, such as atlases and maps by Quad and others, in order to contemplate early modern readers’ experiences of these resources.
Simone Zurawski: Architecture and Urban Development in the Reign of Louis XIV Reconsidered: Paris in the Aftermath of the Fronde
The Porte Saint-Denis raised by François Blondel (1672) embodies French Baroque Classicism in the reign of Louis XIV and assumes its place as the first permanent triumphal arch in Paris. Of foremost significance, moreover, are the fused historical and political reasons for choosing its site, which was cleared to make way for open urban space. Long occupied by the premier gateway carved into the Medieval walls, Blondel’s free-standing replacement freshly celebrated its connection between Paris and the royal abbey in Saint Denis. And this venerable compound sprang back to life, and gripped the King’s attention, because it had sheltered him, when a terrified boy, and his equally traumatized mother, Anne d’Autriche, during the Fronde. A wealth of personal imagery was thereafter expressed through Blondel’s classical monument alongside the more familiar iconography of “imperial” glory; and, just as importantly, this combination would have been extended in tribute to the brave and loyal locals who had helped the Maréchal Turenne clinch his victory for the Crown. This riveting, and previously overlooked, narrative emerges through untapped sources found in the Newberry Library, notably and above all, Michel Félibien’s Histoire de l’abbaye royal de Saint-Denis (1706).