Category: Maps and Atlases

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  The cartography of Captain James Cook

  It must have been quite the sight. On the 3rd of June 1769 – now 250 years ago – Englishmen were on the island of Tahiti looking through high-quality telescopes to watch a rare natural phenomenon: the transit of Venus across the face of the Sun.

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  Maps with flaps

  Berkhey’s time travel map of northern Holland and the Haarlemmermeer (c. 1778): a GIS avant la lettre

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  Paper ‘Campanilismo’ on Blaeu’s Map of Bologna

  A conspicuous piece of paper tells a great story.

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  A disastrous fortification

  Walls of the settlement at Bimilipatnam collapsed due to disastrous construction. VOC authorities were furious.

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  Sailing to Asia

  The Western manuscripts collection contains valuable treasures leading their readers to the Asian continent. Eleven historical travel journals are now digitized.

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  A school map of the Relief of Leiden in 1574

  The third of October, boats with white bread, herring and cheese relieved the people of Leiden.

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  Blaeu’s Italian Promise

  The most beautiful, but also least known of Joan Blaeu’s works.

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  An Embossed Map of Vienna by Georg Bauerkeller

  A very special technique of embossing in mapmaking.

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  Bahía lost, Sluis regained

  Alternative facts in 1625: an unknown newsprint of the Spanish capturing the city of Salvador in Brazil illustrated with a re-used woodcut of the siege of Sluis

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  The Siege of Groenlo

  One contemporary handdrawn map of the siege has survived.

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  Woerden defended by water

  A small atlas with manuscript plans showing the fortification of Woerden.

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  Four views on Leiden

  Jos Agasi's visualisation of the characteristic shape of the Leiden city centre gave surprising results.

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  Leiden on the map

  One of the first printed maps of the town, published just after the relief of Leiden 'at the house of Johannes Liefrinck'