Tome MARELIC, University of Zadar (NACHAS project), Croatia
Julijan SUTLOVIC, University of Zadar (NACHAS project), Croatia
Jacques-Nicolas Bellin, the chief cartographer of the Dépôt des cartes, plans et journaux of the French Ministère de la Marine in the 18th century, published three main atlases and provided maps for several other publications[1][2].The main goal of this research is to obtain a deeper insight into the geometric properties of Bellin’s charts on which the Adriatic Sea is shown (which represent valuable historical cartographic heritage) by using the cartometric approach within the GIS environment.
The research sample consists of Bellin’s seven charts: A) three charts made in a smaller map scale (from 1737, 1745, and 1771) on which the whole Adriatic Sea basin is represented, which were georeferenced on the modern Adriatic Sea reference map, and B) four regional charts (from 1771) made in larger map scale, which were georeferenced on the reference map, and on each of his three smaller-scale charts. Coastline representations on each chart were converted into vector datasets in order to make more detailed computations of their appearances.
His charts from 1737 and 1771 showed the best geometrical fit in comparison with the Mercator projection, while the chart from 1745 appears to be most similar to the cylindrical equidistant projection with standard parallel φ0=36°. His regional charts showed the best geometric similarities in comparison with their contemporary smaller-scale chart (1771), but with significant deviations of coastline representations, especially in terms of the cartographic representations of islands.
This research is a part of the Scientific project IP-2020-02-5339 Early Modern Nautical Charts of the Adriatic Sea: Information Sources, Navigation Means and Communication Media (NACHAS) funded by the Croatian Science Foundation.
Keywords: Jacques-Nicolas Bellin|navigational charts|HGIS cartometric analysis|cartographic heritage|Adriatic Sea
A103061TM