Space and Time
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Early time-graphics depicted religious and royal family trees. Though often artistically pleasing, these trees lacked the rigorous coordinate system and graphic precision of contemporary nautical charts. To better see time, designers took a note from the map’s grid and evenly spaced years along an axis line. This innovation fostered more analytic depictions of history. The familiar left-to-right timeline was born. Concurrently, emerging geologic science challenged beliefs about the age of the earth and the origin of species, fostering a new type of map colored by the age of rock.
Chronology of England
Chronologie d'Angleterre
Claude Renaudot ("Mazaroz")
1781, Paris
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This chronology fully embraces a branching tree metaphor to show the history of English rulers. A tree trunk grows out of the Anglo-Saxon seven kingdom Heptarchy. Its growth refreshes with William the Conqueror and rises to the then present. Some branches terminate abruptly in dead ends, including one labeled "Decadence of Roman power" at the diagram's root. Other wayward branches are restored with a graft back into the main trunk.
The parallel mast binds conquests with ship rigging, emphasizing England's naval power. Scotland and Ireland are tied to the left side of the mast. The American colonies can be seen breaking free at its very top.
Family trees stretch back at least to illuminated medieval diagrams that helped legitimize dynasties and chronicle the genealogy of Christ. They originate in practical consanguinity diagrams that helped avoid forbidden marriages between close relatives. ❧
Click image for zoom interactive.
Click image for zoom interactive.
Discus Chronologicus
Discus Chronologicus in quo Omnes Imperatores et Reges Orbis Europaei
Christoph Weigel
1730, Nuremberg
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The names of leaders important to the European world march counterclockwise since the birth of Christ. A rotating volvelle arm helps the viewer keep track of which kingdom corresponds to each colorful ring. Weigel’s Discus bridges medieval and modern designs. Its circular layout suggests older cosmological diagrams and perpetual calendars. Its even spacing of time, 20° for each century, reflected the increasing attention to the demands of emerging sciences for precise and regular records of time. Zoom in to see the Eye of Providence at the center, emblazoned with the doctrine of the divine right of kings, Per me Reges regnant, “By me Kings reign.” ❧
A Chart of Biography
Joseph Priestley
1765, London
Image courtesy of the Library Company of Philadelphia.
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A Chart of Biography visualizes the life spans of 2,000 people across a constant timeline. Swimlanes separate individuals into six broad categories, including artists & poets and warriors & statesmen.
Click any image for zoom interactive.
A New Chart of History
Joseph Priestley
1769, London
Image courtesy of the University of Oregon InfoGraphics Lab via Wikimedia.
Stanford version
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Biography’s sequel, A New Chart of History, illustrates the succession of empires to give students a more global view of history across space and time. Vertical space indicates each empire’s significance, as assigned by Priestley.
Both charts are built on the same time scale, allowing them to be stacked for added comparisons. As the most successful timelines of the 1700s, they helped popularize the timeline and inspired over a century’s worth of longviews of history. ❧
Click image for zoom interactive.
Profiles of the Seine
Profils Représentés la Cruë et la Diminution des Eaux de la Seine
Philippe Buache
1770, Paris
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High and low water levels of the River Seine are tracked across three decades. The hand-colored reference line marks the high water mark of 1769. The chart's vertical depth scale suggests an actual striped staff gauge. As Buache created this in pre-revolutionary and pre-metric France, the depth units are pied du roi, the king's foot.
Buache's chart predates William Playfair's famous creation of his own bar chart by 16 years. Buache's vibrant overlapping bars forecast work that would not arrive for another hundred years. Yet we might consider it still one degree less abstract, and one step before Playfair's breakthrough. Unlike Playfair's total imports of a nation, the Buache's water actually stacks in real life. ❧
Palæontological Map of the British Islands
A composite image of two spreads
Alexander Keith Johnston, Edward Forbes
1850, Edinburgh
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Encouraged by Alexander von Humboldt, Johnston created an atlas with concise yet comprehensive views by weaving geology, hydrology, meteorology, botany, and zoology. This Map of the British Islands stretches a color palette across time, with newer rocks on top of its color legend. Igneous and volcanic rocks are distinguished in red, a custom that would become a standard decades later.
These geologic colors are accentuated by fossil annotations that include pictorial and abstract symbols, inset tables and diagrams, ribbons of text, and specimen illustrations. The inset Diagram of the Distribution of Ammonites in Time attempts to visually organize animal features across the ages. The map is accompanied by a tabular narrative that compares regions on the map to other parts of the world. ❧
Click image for zoom interactive.
Click image for zoom interactive.
A Map of Vesuvius
showing the direction of the streams of Lava in the Eruptions from 1631 A.D. to 1831 A.D.
John Auldjo
1833, London
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John Auldjo was a celebrity mountaineer famous for an account of his 1827 climb of Mont Blanc. In 1831, volcanic activity drew him to explore Vesuvius. This map was part of the resulting detailed traveler’s guidebook that included a history of eruptions, tips for how to climb to the sites, and many field sketches. Two hundred years of “small cone” Vesuvius lava streams are colored by year. The flows show the general movement of lava toward the sea and out of the collapsed volcanic caldera “big cone” of Mount Somma. ❧
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