Monday 19 March 2007

Imago Mundi Prize to George Tolias

The Directors of Imago Mundi Ltd are delighted to announce that the second Imago Mundi Prize has been awarded to George Tolias for 'Nikolaos Sophianos's "Totius Graeciae Descriptio": the resources, diffusion, and function of a sixteenth-century antiquarian map of Greece,' which appeared in Imago Mundi 58, no. 2 (2006): 150-182. Dr Tolias is Research Director of the Institute for Neohellenic Re-search, The National Hellenic Research Foundation, in Athens.
The judges considered this article to be "a most accomplished work of historical and cartobibliographical scholarship. Dr Tolias has provided a coherent argument for the importance of this map of ancient and modern Greece, deftly placing it within the contemporary contexts of European humanism and the Reformation. In particular, he has elucidated the connection of the work to the era's ideological-religious crisis through his skilful examination of the reading of the map by contemporaries and demonstrated its influence in both Roman Catholic and Protestant Europe. The result is an essay that marshals an impressive array of evidence to give a well rounded and complete cartographic analysis, an analysis that significantly expands our understanding of the place of cartography in early modern culture."
The prize is offered every two years. This award covered Volumes 57 (2005)and 58(2006). The winning article is the one judged 'to have made the most significant contribution to the discipline'. Full length articles are eligible for the prize but not short articles, since it is only full length articles that are automatically subjected to the (anonymous) external refereeing process before acceptance for publication.
The winner […] qualifies for a J.B. Harley Travel Award to the next biennial Interna-tional Conference on the History of Cartography (Berne, 8-13 July 2007).