Jean Temporal

Jean Temporal (* beginning of the 16th century in France , † around 1575 in France), also known as Johannes Temporarius , Jean du Tempos or Jean du Temps , was a French translator, author and publisher whose place of work was Lyon (since 1549) has been.

Fields of activity

The Africa map by Leo Africanus, which Jean Temporal provided with French names and some accessories

One of his most important publications was the work Description de l'Afrique (Description of Africa) in 1556 , a travel collection with texts by various authors who had got to know African regions as travelers, merchants, seafarers etc. and wrote reports about them. In an introduction written by Jean Temporal himself, the history of the discovery of Africa from Hanno to the first Portuguese efforts and voyages ( Henry the Navigator ) is described; almost all of his texts have been translated into French by him.

A large space in the work (four books) takes the writing La descrittione dell 'Africa of the Berber traveler and geographer Leo Africanus (1490-1560), by the Italian historian and geographer Giovanni Battista Ramusio (1485-1557) for the first time Published in Venice in 1550 in his travel collection Navigationi et viaggi . The writing is illustrated with a series of pictures (woodcuts) of the country and its people and contains a map of Africa, which offers a somewhat unusual sight because it is south facing up and the continent is upside down. - Other extensive contributions to Temporal's travel collection included, among others, the Italian navigators and merchants Alvise Cadamosto (1432–1483) and Amerigo Vespucci (1451–1512) as well as a few smaller contributions by seafarers and explorers of various nationalities.

The work immediately attracted a lot of attention and was published soon after its publication by the Franco-Flemish printer and publisher Christoph Plantin (1520–1589) in Antwerp in a pirated print .

Jean Temporal's map Blaisois was included in the atlas Le Theater Francoys , published in Tours in 1594 by the printer Maurice Bouguereau . This first atlas of France contained (depending on the edition) 14 to 16 maps by various well-known cartographers.

literature

• Leo Africanus: The History and Description of Africa: And of the Notable Things therein contained , Cambridge University Press, New York 2005. (Reprint of an 1896 publication by the Hakluyt Society with introductory texts)
• Oumelbanine Zhiri: L'Afrique au miroir de l'Europe: Fortunes de Jean Léon Africain à la Renaissance , Librairie Droz, Geneva 1991
• Leo Bagrow : The history of cartography: With 228 reproductions of maps on 8 color plates, 112 art print plates and in the text 1435 names and dates of cartographers , Safari Verlag, Berlin 1951
• Jean Temporal (editor and translator): Historiale Description de l'Afrique, Tierce Partie du Monde, Contenant ses Royaumes, Iles, Coutumes; Escrite de Nôtre Temps par Jean Leon, Premierement en Langue Arabesque, Puis en Toscane, et à Present Mise en François. Plus, Cing Navigational Au Paḯs des Noirs, avec les Discours sur Celles , Jean Temporal, Lyon 1556

Web links

• Literature by and about Jean Temporal in the WorldCat bibliographic database
• Culturegraph ( Memento of August 10, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) with information about Jean Temporal
• Description de l'Afrique in the first French publication of 1556
• An overview of the French National Library with illustrations from Description de l'Afrique

Remarks

1. ↑ Leo Africanus: The History and Description of Africa… , New York 2005, page iv (56) in the introduction.
2. ^ Leo Bagrow: The history of cartography (1951), page 135