Famous Cartographers


If you didn’t go to Ignite Spatial Northern Colorado 2.0 last week, you missed an excellent talk by Brian Timoney. In it, he discusses four famous cartographers: Matteo Ricci, Gerardus Mercator (i.e., Gerry Kremer from Flanders!), John Seller, and Sir Robert Schomburgk. Some excellent quotes from the video:

“If you’re not excited about the colander on the gift registry, maps make wonderful gifts.”
“GIS people are horrible business people.”

Timoney talked to me at the end of the meeting about his quest to find a famous female cartographer. (If you know of one, let us hear about her in the comments!) Although he didn’t have much success he did mention that it was his theory that the wives may have had a large roll in the maps that their husbands made even though we don’t know it. These were family businesses back then, and the maps were constructed on the family property, not in large offices. Something to think about!

Watch the video to learn four life lessons. Enjoy.

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