-Caveat Lector- On 14 Dec 2002 at 21:56, David Sutherland wrote:
> > -Caveat Lector- > > Have access to this article: > > http://www.nytimes.com/auth/login?URI=http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/14/arts/design/ > 14MAP.html > September 14, 2002 Was 'Old' Map Faked to Tweak the Nazis? By EMILY EAKIN he Vinland Map must be the world's most contested piece of parchment. Donated to Yale University by the philanthropist Paul Mellon in 1957, the map, which famously describes the Viking discovery of North America, has been stuck in scholarly deadlock ever since. The subject of endless studies and counterstudies, the map is either a rare medieval artifact � the first cartographic representation of the continent � or else a modern fake. Consider the two conflicting studies that appeared in scientific journals last month. One, published in Radiocarbon, gives a date for the map's parchment of 1434, suggesting to the researchers that the map could well be authentic. The second study, published in Analytical Chemistry, comes to the opposite conclusion, arguing, as previous studies have, that the presence of a mineral called anatase in the map's ink indicates a 20th-century origin � even if the parchment is far older. And just last Sunday, in The Boston Globe, the rival factions were rehashing the debate once again. But now the forgery camp may have some fresh ammunition. A Norwegian historian says she has fingered the forger: a German Jesuit priest named Josef Fischer, whom she believes made the map partly to protest the Nazi regime. "He would have made the map not for profit and not to flaunt it publicly, but mostly as a private protest," said the historian, Kirsten A. Seaver, an independent scholar based in Palo Alto, Calif., who is the author of a well-regarded book about the Viking exploration of North America. "I'm very convinced it was done to tease the Nazis." Politics and religion are at the heart of Ms. Seaver's intricate case against Father Fischer, which she has laid out in several scholarly articles and is turning into a book that she hopes to publish next year. And though her evidence is mostly circumstantial � Father Fischer left no confession � experts say her theory merits serious attention. "He seems pretty plausible," said Robert W. Karrow, curator of special collections and maps at the Newberry Library in Chicago. "It may have been intellectual arrogance or just a game, but he was in pretty much the right place at pretty much the right time and had the right information. I think it all hangs together." As Ms. Seaver points out, in many ways the Jesuit is an obvious suspect. He was an avid scholar and collector of old maps, credited with discovering the now legendary Waldseem�ller world map from 1507 � the first to use the word America. He was also passionately committed to the idea that the Norse had been to this continent long before Christopher Columbus, publishing a book on the subject in 1902. At the time, there was little evidence for Father Fischer's theory. Yet he was convinced a cartographic record of the venture must exist. These facts alone might qualify as probable motive, but Ms. Seaver's theory is more elaborate. Father Fischer, she argues, would have been outraged by the Nazis' persecution of Jesuits. In 1938, Nazi officials forced the sale of Stella Matutina, the Jesuit College in Feldkirch, Austria, where Father Fischer had taught and was living in retirement. (He moved to Munich the next year and died in 1944.) At the same time, Ms. Seaver contends, Father Fischer would have been appalled to see ancient Norse history put to use as Nazi propaganda. The Third Reich did a bustling traffic in ersatz Norse art and artifacts, she points out, as German officials saw in the Vikings an Aryan people with territorial ambitions much like their own. In particular, a Viking conquest of North America would supply a perfect rationale for the Reich's empire-lust overseas. By making the Vinland Map, Father Fischer would thus seem to be fulfilling a cherished Nazi dream. But � and here's the rub � the map is laden with Catholic imagery. The legend in the top left corner refers not only to the discovery of "Vinland" by "the companions Bjarni and Leif Eiriksson," but to a trip there soon after by Eric, "legate of the Apostolic See and the bishop of Greenland." This, Ms. Seaver argues, was Father Fischer's ruse: to give the Nazis � and history � a Viking conquest of the New World but to make clear that it was a Catholic one as well. "The map shows two things clearly," she said. "The Roman Catholic Church was here first, long before Hitler and the Third Reich could claim any rights to the region, and it showed the Norse had discovered America long before Columbus. Whoever the Nazi authority was who was going to pronounce on such a map in the public eye would have to make a choice. Should the map be discarded because of its Catholic symbolism? Or should they go with the lovely idea of the Norse discovery of America?" Anomalies in the map's legend � including its idiosyncratic account of Norse history � further implicate Father Fischer, Ms. Seaver says, who would have relied on inaccurate secondary sources. But her most tantalizing clue concerns a Czech library that may once have housed the Vinland Map parchment. When Mr. Mellon purchased the map from a Connecticut rare books dealer in 1957, he also acquired two associated 15th-century works: "The Tartar Relation" and "Speculum Historiale." The latter volume was incomplete, however, consisting of just the first four sections. But in a Swiss auction catalog from 1934, Ms. Seaver found a listing for a manuscript fragment that appears to be the volume's missing fifth section. The catalog attributed the fragment to the Mikulov Castle library in Brno, a collection that was known for its antique maps and that Father Fischer consulted. When the library was sold in the early 1930's, Ms. Seaver speculates, Father Fischer either bought or was given a bound edition containing both"The Tartar Relation" and "Speculum Historiale," later converting some of the parchment � into the Vinland Map. "If correct," said Peter Barber, head of map collections at the British Library, Father Fischer's connection to "Speculum Historiale" "is close to a smoking gun." Close may be the best Ms. Seaver can do. Like her, Father Fischer was interested in map forgeries, and even published an article on some Renaissance world maps that he suspected were fakes. And like her, he lacked a smoking gun. "As far as I can see, none of these maps has an absolutely impossible appearance," he was obliged to concede. "But all of them are to a greater or lesser degree strange and different from all other hitherto known maps." Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company | Permissions | Privacy Policy-- Outgoing mail is certified virus free Scanned by Norton AntiVirus <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/";>www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance�not soap-boxing�please! 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