CARTOGRAPHIC COLLECTION OF THE CROATIAN MARITIME MUSEUM (CMM) WITH THE BRIEF REVIEW OF HISTORY OF THE MARITIME MUSEOLOGY IN SPLIT mr.sc. Gordana Tudor
CROATIAN MARITIME MUSEUM in the fortress Gripe CROATIAN MARITIME MUSEUM is the youngest cultural institution in the city; however the tradition of maritime museology in Split is almost a century old.
In the summer of 1925, as part of the grand opening of the railway line between Split and the interior, large ADRIATIC EXHIBITION was organised presenting Adriatic maritime and other activities related to the sea.
After completion of the exhibition, ADRIATIC GUARD, the social organisation from Split, founded the first Maritime museum in 1926 with the collected artefacts and materials. In 1933, the museum was moved into a new building in the neighbourhood Meje in Split.
View of one of the exhibit halls with a model of the steamship Queen Mary, which can still be seen in our museum
During the World War II the museum activities were interrupted. Yugoslav Academy of Arts and Sciences (now the Croatian Academy of Arts and Sciences - HAZU) took over the museum in 1948, and since 1960 to 1985 it was located in the Milesi palace in the centre of Split.
In 1960, the second maritime museum was founded in Split - the Naval and Military Museum of the Yugoslav Navy, which was moved into premises belonging to the fortress Gripe in 1982. After the dissolution of Yugoslavia, the museum changed its name to the Naval and Military Museum of the Croatian Navy.
Finally, the leadership of the city of Split founded the Croatian Maritime Museum in 1997 as a new cultural institution. Although not formally, Croatian Maritime Museum in Split (CMMS) is the real successor of the former museum since it inherited their holdings. Today's museum holdings are distributed in 17 different museum collections.
COLLECTION OF NAUTICAL CHARTS AND PILOTS is one of the smallest collections with 267 museum objects. The oldest objects in the collection are views of the Dalmatian cities dating back to 16th century, parts of the isolar made by the Venetian cartographer G.F. Camocio and the Mercator s map of Slavonia, Croatia, Bosnia and Dalmatia, published in 1648.
Cartography of the 18th century is represented by several maps as well as with two pilots. They are work of the French cartographer Joseph Roux. One RECUEIL DES PRINCIPAUX PLANS DES PORTS ET RADES DE LA MER MEDITERRANEE was printed in Marseille in 1764, and contains 121 pages with the plans of the Mediterranean ports.
Interesting watercolour of Dubrovnik and the surrounding areas can be found among the maps from the 19th century. It is called PLANO TOPOGRAFICO DE RAGUSA E SOBORGHI COL CIRCONDARIO MARITTIMO DI BRENO E RAGUSA VECCHIA and it was made by an artist from Dubrovnik during the French government in Dalmatia.
However, most of the Collection consists of different types of charts which were, after the beginning of the second half of the 19th century, made by predecessors of today's Croatian Hydrographic Institute, from Bureau of the Austro-Hungarian Navy, through the hydrographic institutions across the Kingdom of SHS / Yugoslavia, and SFRJ, to the present Croatian Hydrographic Institute.
Several maps of the Adriatic and the Mediterranean come from the same period, published by Hydrographic Institute of Italy, Spain, United Kingdom and other countries.
Topographic map of island Vis from the World war II period, made by Cartographic office of the Partisan navy. It was the first map made in that period in this part of Europe.
Among first maps made by Hydrographic institute Split after World war II, were seven maps of Adriatic (from the river Tagliamento to island Corfu) with marked mine fields. These maps were important for navigation in the first years after the war.
At the end we will say something about maps on silk. These are World war II pilot maps so called salvation package, that were showing bombarded area and the nearby area. Were used in the case of falling in enemy territory to find way out.
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