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Earthcube: Christian Gottlieb Reichard’s Point of View on the Earth

2011; Springer Nature; Linguagem: Inglês

10.1007/978-3-642-19088-9_17

1863-2351

Andreas Christoph,

German Literature and Culture Studies

Under the instruction of Franz Xaver von Zach (1754–1832) and Friedrich Justin Bertuch (1747–1822), Christian Gottlieb Reichard (1758–1837) designed an “Atlas des ganzen Erdkreises,” which was first published by the “Landes-Industrie-Comptoir” at Weimar, Germany in 1803. Moreover, we find in a sales catalogue that it was possible to acquire the “Atlas” shaped on a cubical rack. My question is: Was the “Erdkubus” ever implemented? What was the full story behind this advertisement? The aim of my paper is to analyze an unknown product of the cartographer Reichard. Looking at the correspondence between Reichard, the publisher Bertuch and the astronomer Zach should give us the opportunity to understand a special form of ‘Cartography in the making’. Indeed, circa 1800 a synergetic cube-concept – applying the appeal of maps in combination with the representation-form of a globe – was mentioned for the first time by Bertuch and his staff. Reconstructing the development of the “Erdkubus” also offers miscellanea of travel literature and mapping culture in Germany in the early nineteenth century.