This is the central question of this unprecedented conference by Stefaan Missinne, a Belgian professor residing in Austria and a member of the Royal Geographical Society of London, and Olivier Cabayé, a historian from Albi with a doctorate in history.
Based on years of research and the study of archival documents from different countries, (…)
This is the central question of this unprecedented conference by Stefaan Missinne, a Belgian professor residing in Austria and a member of the Royal Geographical Society of London, and Olivier Cabayé, a historian from Albi with a doctorate in history.
Drawing on years of research and the study of archival documents from different countries, the two authors present new perspectives on Louis Boulengier, a scholar from Albi in the early 16th century.
This book, recently published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing to mark the 250th anniversary of American independence, highlights Boulengier's unique historical role in disseminating geographical knowledge at a time when the world was being reshaped by the great discoveries. It sheds new light on a remarkable 1508 copper engraving, the oldest known birth certificate of America, held in a New York library, depicting a world map on the same scale as Leonardo da Vinci's 1504 globe, as well as on the circumstances that led to the first recorded use of the name "America" in 1507.
This lecture invites the public to follow a genuine historical investigation, blending ancient documents, maps, and previously unseen discoveries to renew our understanding of an important episode in history in general, and of an inhabitant of Albi in particular. A fascinating encounter that invites us to discover the world as it was imagined 800 years after the creation of the Mappa Mundi of Albi, inscribed on UNESCO's Memory of the World Register since 2015.
This conference will take place in the auditorium of the Toulouse-Lautrec Museum.
