Applications are now open for Philip Lee Phillips Society Fellowship at the Library of Congress. Scholars of the history of cartography, Geographic Information Science (GIS), digital humanities or related fields are encouraged to apply for this fellowship utilizing the collections of the Geography and Map Division.
Growing up in a Brazilian-American household, I’ve long appreciated the delicious versatility of the Atlantic cod, scientific name Gadus morhua, known to the Portuguese-speaking world as bacalhau in its preferred salted and dried form. It was only when I began working as a map librarian, however, that I saw how powerful cod truly was. Centuries …
Copperplate printing was a major method of map production for several hundred years. This post explores the history of printing maps with engraved copper plates, featuring several example maps and photographs of copper plates from the Geography and Map Division collections. This is the first post in a new series about map printing and creation, Fabricating the World.
Historically, maps have been used to promote political ideologies. The Dutch mastered the technique during the 16th and 17th centuries, making the Low Countries (present-day Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg or Benelux Countries and Northern France) appear in the form of a lion, called Leo Belgicus.
This post is about maps related to the voyages of Sir Francis Drake in the collections of the Library of Congress. The maps are held in both the Geography and Map Division and the Hans Peter Kraus Collection of the Rare Book and Special Collections Division.
In 1528 Venetian cartographer, miniaturist, and editor Benedetto Bordone published Libro di Benedetto Bordone : nel qual si ragiona de tutte l’isole del mondo, con li lor nomi antichi & moderni, historie, fauole, & modi del loro uiuere, & in qual parte del mare stanno, & in qual parallelo & clima giacciono (Book of Benedetto …
The story of the naming of America has been told before – not surprisingly considering the object central to the story, Martin Waldseemüller’s 1507 world map, is one of the most important treasures in the Geography and Map Division. The name was bestowed by the mapmaker to show his support for Amerigo Vespucci’s argument that …
