**3. Spatial, temporal and cultural context**

In the course of three centuries (16th – 19th ), the territory of Early Modern Croatia was determined by the borderlands of three imperial systems of the time: Habsburg Monarchy, Ottoman Empire and Venetian Republic (Figure1). Borders were, consequently, significantly influential in political, social, cultural, and demographic sense.

**Figure 1.** Croatia and triple border, 18th century, [22]

298 Cartography – A Tool for Spatial Analysis

particular period and place [11].

what may be called as a spirit of time.

attitudes and skills, including the local knowledge that is related to the internal power of map. This context is related to the general statement that maps are, like art, a particular human way of looking at the world. Second context is a context of other maps that ensure and emphasize the importance of multiple maps, perspectives and polysemy. Third context is the context of society and points out to the importance of positioning the map within societal-power relations, i.e. within specific historical, social and political conditions, from which it cannot be extracted or generalized [2,10]. The contexts of other maps and society (or societal environment) are directly connected and linked to the external power of the map. It can be seen through maps made by different actors that are reflecting different or even opposed approaches to the territory that were embedded in the society and culture of the

Based on the iconographic studies by E. Panofsky [6], Harley has defined a number of semantic layers of the map. The symbolic one often has ideological connotations. It refers to power relationships, distinction of social groups and system of beliefs, to worldviews and to

Scholars in Croatia have recently addressed these topics from various perspectives. The first writings embrace the topics of cartographic perceptions and the state power interests of the multiple borderlands of Croatia [11,12], different perceptions of Croatian lands in Croatian and other European cartographic traditions [13], toponymy and perceptions [14,15], the relation of cartography, place-names and regional identities [16], the political rhetoric of

Imaging the past of the multicultural space of the early modern Croatian borderlands was based primarily on deconstructing the maps of the time, as the main research and methodological approach. Reading between the lines, in the margins of the textuality of map, searching for metaphors, evaluating the presence or absence (silencing) of information; in short - tracing the rhetoric of map and its symbolic meaning and/or political messages. Key elements of analysis were place-names and smaller cartographic transcriptions and objections as they are as much related to an invisible social world and to ideology as they are to the material world that can be seen and measured. All the contexts were appreciated,

The analysis is based on the cartographic originals of the time from the map collections of the Croatian State Archives, The National and University Library and the Museum of Croatian History, as well as on the numerous published facsimiles [19, 20, 21]. A selection of maps and a comparative approach enable an insight into the different cartographic representations and images of the borderlands within different traditions and even within

In the course of three centuries (16th – 19th ), the territory of Early Modern Croatia was determined by the borderlands of three imperial systems of the time: Habsburg Monarchy,

maps [17] and recently the cartographic visualization and the image of Other [18].

especially the importance of the multiplicity of perspectives.

the framework of a single, overarching tradition.

**3. Spatial, temporal and cultural context** 

In the history of mapping the Croatian territory, the Early Modern Period was directly connected with military operations i.e. the process of Ottoman retreat. This is the period when cartography developed into so-called "military cartography", practiced in military institutions. Thus, military engineers were mainly the creators of new maps. However, the cartographers were rarely independent decision makers, free of financial, military or political constraints. The context of the cartographer, as Harley has pointed out [8], also included personal skills and the cartographer as a person living in a particular society and in particular political circumstances. Accordingly, map could and often did represent an image with multiple layers of meanings and perceptions and, but also, emphasized features of strategic importance of the state or empire, i.e. exercising the external and internal power of cartography [9].

Triple border conditioned a true multicultural surrounding. Croatian territory was a "meeting point" of Western and Eastern world, Christianity and Islam as well as maritime and continental traditions. Frequent changes of borderlines were followed by population shifts and migration, introduction of new (other) social and cultural groups, as well as leading to mixed cultural, religious, ethnic groups and lifestyles in borderlands. Appreciation of these differences, sense of uniqueness and perception of otherness, through the territorialization, conditioned the creation of spatial images and eventually resulted in regional identity.

Imaging the Past: Cartography and Multicultural Realities of Croatian Borderlands 301

cartographer, was the most prominent figure in promoting Venetian politics regarding the territorial pretensions on his maps. They were an important instrument for emphasizing the Venetian conquest over the Ottomans. Coronelli's map of Dalmatia is a general regional map on a rather small scale. The map charts Venetian Dalmatia, the territory of the Republic

of Dubrovnik, parts of Croatia, Bosnia, Serbia and surrounding lands (Figure 2).

**Figure 2.** Coronelli's Map of the Kingdom of Dalmatia, **La Morlaquie**, Bosnia and Serbia …, 1700,

The whole inland area between the river Sava and the Adriatic is compressed along its north-south axis. But, on the other hand, the territory of Venetian Dalmatia is unproportionally vast, especially the inland part. These "distortions" are a testimony to the expression of state power interests and an approach to the border area; emphasizing and over-exaggerating its possessions and importance, while ignoring the Ottoman side at the same time [11]. The rhetoric of the map is accompanied with the well known tool of expressing the Venetian possession of the Adriatic aquatorial space as "*Mer ou Golfe de Venise*" and in addition, introducing the "*Mer et Isles de la Dalmatie*", that as a hydronym does not really exist apart from the political context of exercising power and control over

facsimile in [19]. Emphasized by the author.

Venetian Dalmatia.
