At 10:00 17*12*98 -0000, you wrote:
>I have a feeling this may have been asked before, but can anyone help locate
>a reference for me to a story by Borges about making a map that is so large
>it covers the country being mapped, a map on the scale of 1:1?
>
>I'd be very grateful for a reference.
>
>With thanks
>
>Stuart
>
>
>
Stuart,
if you are asking for a reference to this story in Foucault, i have no idea,
but if you are asking for a reference to the Borges story itself, i can
help. it can be found in *A Universal History of Infamy* (Penguin 1984), its
title is "Of Exactitude in Science", and it occurs on p. 131. It is short
and i quote it here for your benefit:
Of Exactitude in Science
In that Empire, the craft of Cartography attained such Perfection that the
Map of a Single province covered the space of an entire City, and the Map of
the Empire itself an entire Province. In the course of Time, these
Extensive maps were found somehow wanting, and so the College of
Cartographers evolved a Map of the Empire that was of the same Scale as the
Empire and that coincided with it point for point. Less attentive to the
Study of Cartography, succeeding Generations came to judge a map of such
Magnitude cumbersome, and, not without Irreverence, they abandoned it to the
Rigours of sun and Rain. In the western Deserts, tattered Fragments of the
Map are still to be found, Sheltering an occasional Beast or beggar; in the
whole Nation, no other relic is left of the Discipline of Geography.
cheers
sebastian
>I have a feeling this may have been asked before, but can anyone help locate
>a reference for me to a story by Borges about making a map that is so large
>it covers the country being mapped, a map on the scale of 1:1?
>
>I'd be very grateful for a reference.
>
>With thanks
>
>Stuart
>
>
>
Stuart,
if you are asking for a reference to this story in Foucault, i have no idea,
but if you are asking for a reference to the Borges story itself, i can
help. it can be found in *A Universal History of Infamy* (Penguin 1984), its
title is "Of Exactitude in Science", and it occurs on p. 131. It is short
and i quote it here for your benefit:
Of Exactitude in Science
In that Empire, the craft of Cartography attained such Perfection that the
Map of a Single province covered the space of an entire City, and the Map of
the Empire itself an entire Province. In the course of Time, these
Extensive maps were found somehow wanting, and so the College of
Cartographers evolved a Map of the Empire that was of the same Scale as the
Empire and that coincided with it point for point. Less attentive to the
Study of Cartography, succeeding Generations came to judge a map of such
Magnitude cumbersome, and, not without Irreverence, they abandoned it to the
Rigours of sun and Rain. In the western Deserts, tattered Fragments of the
Map are still to be found, Sheltering an occasional Beast or beggar; in the
whole Nation, no other relic is left of the Discipline of Geography.
cheers
sebastian