MASSA [MASSART, MASSAERT], ISAAC.
Baptized October 7, 1586 in Haarlem, died 1643.
Dutch cartographer and traveller to Moscow.
Isaac Abrahamszoon Massa was a Dutch grain trader, traveller and diplomat, the envoy to Muscovy, author of memoirs witnessing the Time of Troubles and the maps of Eastern Europe and Siberia. Massa's experience in and knowledge of Muscovy transformed him into a Dutch 'Kremlinologist.' The Isaac Massa Foundation in Groningen aims to stimulate scientific and cultural contacts between the Russian Federation and the Netherlands.
Isaac Massa was born in a wealthy silk merchant's family that relocated from Liege to Haarlem before his birth. His ancestors could have been Italian huguenots who fled their homeland in the beginning of the Reformation. The family surname was also known as Massart, Massaert.
In 1601 Isaac left Haarlem for Moscow to assist the family trade. Isaac has been witness to the second half of Boris Godunov's reign that evolved into a civil war now known as the Time of Troubles. He survived the capture of Moscow by False Dmitriy I and left Russi...
Bland arbeten.
Plans of Moscow 1610, 1618;
N. Russia 1612 and
South Russia, used by Blaeu & Jansson.
Tooley.
PONTOPPIDAN, CHRISTIAN JOCHUM.
1739-1807. Född i Lille Naestved, död på Lolland.
Dansk kartograf. 18 år gammal avbröt han sin skolgång och gick i utländsk krigstjänst. Vid hemkomsten 1773 fick han anställning som lärare i teckning vid den kungliga 'Landkadetkorps'. 1800 tog han avsked. Hans första kartarbete, som omfattade hela Skandinavien och delar av Ryssland, kom ut 1781. Som tillägg till sina olika kartor utarbetade han textband med 'Geographiske Oplysninger'. Hans kartor räknas till den tidens främsta och mest omfattande.
Bland arbeten.
Geographiske Oplysninger.
Bricka. - Ehrencron.
Ca. 1610-42.
Holländsk kartograf, son till Willem Janszoon Blaeu (se denne). Blev tidigt sin fars medarbetare. Efter dennes död fortsatte han faderns verk tillsammans med brodern Joan (se denne). Mellan åren 1639 och 1662 kom Blaeus atlas ut i 10 utgåvor med upp till 11 band och med text på 5 olika språk. Joan Blaeu gav ut 'Atlas major', 'Cosmographia Blaviana' som innehåller inte mindre än 589 kartor. Blaeus atlas är det första kartverk som har separata kartor över Norge och norska områden, i sista utgåvan 7 olika.
Det finns kartor ur Atlas Major med tysk text på baksidan. Enligt uppgift kom dock aldrig en tysk utgåva ut av Atlas Major. De kartor som således trots allt finns med tysk text är troligen lösa ströexemplar. (BL)
Nederl. biogr., X. - Tooley.
Stockholm - Mentzer ca 1860.
Green Vases, Pl. X
Biografiska uppgifter:Kâtip Çelebi, Mustafa bin Abdullah, Haji Khalifa or Kalfa, (1609, Istanbul – 1657 Istanbul)
Kâtip Celebi was an Ottoman scholar. A historian and geographer, he is regarded as one of the most productive authors of non-religious scientific literature in the 17th century Ottoman Empire. Among his best-known works is the Kashf al-?un?n ‘an as?m? al-kutub wa-al-fun?n, ('The Removal of Doubt from the Names of Books and the Arts'), a bibliographic encyclopaedia, written in Arabic, which lists more than 14,500 books in alphabetic order.
Life and works
The son of a soldier, he himself was a soldier for ten years until a heritage made him turn to a more contemplative life. As the accountant of the commissariat department of the Ottoman Army in Anatolia, he accompanied the Ottoman army in the campaign against Baghdad in 1625, was present at the siege of Erzurum, and returned to Istanbul in 1628. In the following year he was again in Baghdad and Hamadan, and in 1633-34 at Aleppo, whence he made the pilgrimage to Mecca (hence his title Hajji). The following year he was in Erivan and then returned to Constantinople. Here he obtained a post in the head office of the commissariat department, which afforded him time for study. He seems to have attended the lectures of great teachers up to the time of his death, and made a practice of visiting bookshops and noting the titles and contents of all books he found there.
One of his shorter and more accessible works is M?z?n al-?aqq f? ikhtiy?r al-a?aqq ('The balance of truth in the choice of the truest'), a collection of short essays on topics in Islamic law, ethics, and theology, in which he takes a relatively liberal and tolerant view—often critical of narrow-minded Islamic religious authorities. This book serves as a source on Ottoman social developments in the 16th and 17th centuries, such as the introduction of coffee and tobacco. While he did not concur with the outlawing of coffee and tobacco, he found tobacco smoke personally distasteful, writing of the 'noxious effects of the corruption of the aerial essence.' An English translation by G. L. Lewis of the M?z?n al-?aqq has been published with annotations under the title The Balance of Truth.
Katip Çelebi died suddenly and peacefully in October 1657, while drinking a cup of coffee.
Bland arbeten:
Cihannüma (The mirror of the world) Constantinople, Ibrahim Müteferrika, 1732. First edition.
This is the second work by Kâtip Celebi published in 1729. The author was a well known writer on history and geography and a bibliophile and in this work intended to publish a universal system of geography. In fact only part of the work (including the description of Asia Minor) was completed by Kâtip who used European and Arabic and Persian sources, and the whole was supplemented and edited by Ibrahim, who dedicated it to the grand vizir of Sultan Mahmud II, Ali Pasha.
The picture is showing the map of the Indian Ocean and the China Sea that was engraved in 1728 by the Hungarian-born Ottoman cartographer and publisher Ibrahim Müteferrika; it is one of a series that illustrated Katip Çelebi’s Cihannuma (Universal Geography), the first printed book of maps and drawings to appear in the Islamic world.
- Se bild.
