The True Description of Cairo

A Sixteenth-Century Venetian View
Erscheinungsjahr 2006
ISBN: 978-0-19-714406-0
Verlag: Oxford University Press

Medienkombination, Englisch, 456 Seiten, Format (B × H): 248 mm x 327 mm, Gewicht: 4247 g

Reihe: Studies in the Arcadian Library

In 1549 a Venetian printmaker, Matteo Pagano, published a large woodblock print of an aerial view of the city of Cairo; it was accompanied by a Latin text ('Descriptio Alcahirae') attributed to the orientalist scholar, Guillaume Postel. The depiction of the city is sufficiently accurate to permit a detailed interpretation of the city to be made, and it remained the standard western representation of this fabled eastern city for the next 250 years.

Nicholas Warner provides a context for Pagano's view of Cairo, a translation of Postel's text, and a commentary on the contents of the print itself in addition to the accompanying narrative. An index of subsequent revisions, and a superbly produced enhanced facsimile of the view itself is included.

Volume 1 (208 pages) includes 36 large colour plates, 5 black-and-white plates, and a modern facsimile of the original Latin text 'Descriptio Alchiriae'
Volume 2 (208 pages) includes a modern facsimile of the original Latin text 'Descripto Alcahirae', and 68 black-and-white images, all details of the view
Volume 3 - the view of Cairo - is a 'modern facsimile' of the original view i.e. with blemishes etc removed, packed in a slip case. It is the same size as the original, and folds out in a similar manner to an ordnance survey map. Printed in two colours to match the original.

Zielgruppe

Scholars and students of Islamic art and architecture, urban history, cartography, Renaissance studies, and the relations between Europe and the Arab world.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Warner, Nicholas

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Geschichte einzelner Länder Afrikanische Geschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Geschichte einzelner Länder Asiatische Geschichte

Über Autor(innen)

Nicholas Warner is an architect trained at Cambridge University and the Graduate School of Design, Harvard University. He arrived in Cairo in 1993 to conduct research on the Islamic architecture of the city. Since then he has directed and participated in a number of projects. These relate to the documentation, preservation, and presentation of historic structures and archaeological material throughout Egypt. Among them was the creation of a new map of the core of the
historic city of Cairo, together with a catalogue of its significant architecture. This has given him a unique experience of the character and appearance of the city, both today and in the past.