About
The World Travel & Description project aims to offer a selection of images and accounts from individuals and their observations about how the cities and landscapes they visited appeared. It started in 2021 at Boston College in association with the Certificate for Digital Humanities with the aim of providing scholars with easy access to descriptive material of different spaces across the early modern period. Eventually, the group plans to expand outside the early modern period and eventually cover centuries of history.
The descriptions have been transcribed and placed on a map to give readers a sense of where they are, but also, if the reader so chooses, they can compare the description to the modern appearance of the location. Additionally, some places possess descriptions as offered by numerous people providing insight into how places developed over time or differentiating perspectives as people from different backgrounds interpreted the landscape in divergent ways.
Though this project attempts to provide the perspective and voices of diverse individuals, centuries of discrimination and other historical factors mean that it is much easier to find accounts from elite men rather than other groups. As these descriptions are transcriptions, it should be noted that many reflect biases and prejudices of their era that are often racist, misogynist, and/or other viewpoints that can be shocking to modern sensibilities. The team compiling the data does not share these viewpoints.
Readers should also note that in transcribing the material, efforts have been made to preserve original capitalization, spellings, and markups where possible. While this can lend to a comprehension barrier for contemporary readers, it lends towards encouraging original readings. As most of the publications used tend towards an older version of English than the one we are used to, some spellings can be difficult to comprehend until one attempts to sound them out. Some common substitutions were interchanging v and u or i and y.
Each traveler who recorded their experiences focused on different aspects of the locations they traveled to. Some looked at structures and landmarks while others focused more on the views or the quality of the soil. Through these descriptions, attempts have been made to align these with the modern equivalent as closely as possible though some attempts were less successful than others. It is much easier to find a close to exact location when someone is describing the city of Constantinople which is modern Istabul as opposed to ‘I traveled 20 miles northwest through the Gobi Desert yesterday and then 16 miles north today.’ This also holds for images as there, we were largely reliant on titles and if an entire island is named, it is simply mapped to somewhere on that island as opposed to exactly where that picture is.
For each description, the team has sought to include the person traveling, the year in which they visited the location, the description of the location, and a citation and link to a copy of the original piece. For each image, we have included the image title, creator, and repository as well as the image itself. In some cases, exact dates were difficult to determine and so the date that appears may be approximate (e.g. 1700s or c. 1694).
Rights & Reproductions
For information on use and copying, check out the BC Digital Humanities' Projects page on Rights & Reproduction.
It should be noted in addition thereto that most of the books and other material used in this project are in the public domain unless stated otherwise. Any material--particularly translations--still under copyright will be marked with the relevant information.