"Hildesia / Hildesheim" from Topographie Niedersachsen
description: Matthäeus Merian the Elder was born in Basel (modern Switzerland) in 1593. He began his career as a stained glass designer, but switched to engraving, working under Dietrich Meyer (1572-1658). In his early career, Merian the Elder found work in Strasburg, Paris, Stuttgart, and finally Oppenheim, where he was employed at the publishing firm of Johann Theodor de Bry. He went on to marry de Bry’s daughter, and the two returned to Basel where their first son, Matthäeus the Younger was born in 1621. In 1623, de Bry died, leaving his workshop in sole possession of his son-in-law. Matthäeus the Elder operated for the remainder of his life out of Oppenheim and the nearby city of Frankfurt until his death in 1650. Matthäeus Merian the Younger also went on to work as an engraver as well as a portrait painter. He spent much of his youth traveling, spending considerable time in Italy and Nuremberg. Upon his father’s death, he took over management of the workshop. Matthäeus the Younger likely contributed illustrations to the Topographia Germaniae, and was responsible for publishing the remaining volumes after 1650. This engraving of the city Hildesheim is originally from the Topographie Niedersachsen, written by Martin Zeiler and illustrated in the workshop of Matthäeus Merian. It is one of two representations of this German city in the atlas series; the other is a plan view. This black-and-white engraving depicts the city from an elevated position in the northeast, as if the viewer is looking from a hill outside the city or looking from a bird’s eye view. The upper two fifths of this city view is the sky. In the middle of the sky is the emblem of the city, which features an eagle. The emblem is surrounded by a wreath decorated with flowing ribbons on the top. The name of the city, in both Latin and German forms, appears on the two sides of the emblem. Blank white space represents the sky, while horizontal lines form organic shapes to represent clouds. Below the sky, we see the …
creator: Matthäeus Merian the Elder, Matthäeus Merian the Younger
source: Merian the Elder, Matthäeus, and Martin Zeiler. Topographie Niedersachsen. Frankfurt, 1641-54. Gould Library Special Collections & Archives, Carleton College, Northfield, MN.
date: 1653
contributor: Special Collections, Carleton College, Northfield, MN
rights: Rights for maps held by individual publishers and institutions. Thumbnails displayed constitute fair use.
relation: View of Hildesia/Hildsheim. Merian's Germany at the Deutsches Historisches Museum
format: Sheet map removed from an atlas or book.
language: Latin, German.
type: city view
identifier: Carleton Library Oversize Books (D915 .Z4 1644a)

The Margrave and Elector of Brandenburg
description: This map is titled in English: The Margrave and Elector of Brandenburg: which makes up part of the region of Upper Saxony, divided into its main parts. It was made by Guillaume Sanson and published in Alexis-Hubert Jaillot’s Atlas nouveau in 1692, though there versions of this map ranging from 1676-1700. Guillaume Sanson (1633-1703) was the son of Nicholas Sanson, father of the Sanson mapping powerhouse. Nicholas created the first world atlas made in France and developed innovative cartographic techniques, including a map projection. Nicolas changed the cartographic perspective to be more technical and less lavish. Paris at the time was overpowering other cultural hubs such as Antwerp, so artists and cartographers from the Netherlands and the north were venturing to Paris for work. Nicola’s influence on the French map trade greatly affected the cartographic perspective, and the precision and scientific detail that he used became a model throughout the 17th century. He left his business to his sons, Nicholas II, Guillaume, and Adrien. They carried on his successful and prominent cartography business, though with some prominent rivalries and financial troubles. Guillaume was accused of republishing maps without updating them appropriately, and a new survey of France found that his map significantly overestimated France’s borders. In partnership with Jaillot, Guillaume published the Atlas nouveau in 1681 and the Introducion à la geographie from his father. Alexis-Hubert Jaillot (1632-1712) published abundantly and also passed on his business to his descendants, including female relatives. He was the first to produce the then-popular style of 2 sheet double-hemisphere world map. Jaillot had long term contracts with engraver François Caumartin and letter-engraver Louis Cordier, so they are possible engravers for this map. This map depicts Brandenburg at the time, which was the largest autonomous estate in the Holy Roman Emperor and ruled by the Calvinist Elector Friedric…
creator: Guillaume Sanson
source: Sanson, Guillaume, and Alexis Hubert Jaillot. “Le Marquisat et Eslectorat de Brandebourg : qui fait partie du cercle de la Haute Saxe, divisé en ses principales parties.” A Paris: Chez H. Jaillot, joignant les grands Augustins, aux deux Globes, 1692
date: 1692
contributor: Special Collections, Carleton College, Northfield, MN
rights: Rights for maps held by individual publishers and institutions. Thumbnails displayed constitute fair use.
format: sheet map removed from atlas or book
language: French
type: regional map
identifier: Carleton Library Special Collections (Flat Files) (G5700 1400-1800 Map 23)

Description of the March of Brandenburg
description: This map displays the Brandenburg March, a borderland in northeastern Germany in 1598. The map is engraved and shows the town names, rivers and lakes, and forests of the area. The map is oriented with North at the top although there is not a compass. There are three labeled sections of the map: Marchia Antiqua to the left, Marchia Media in the middle, and Marchia Nova on the right. The three labeled sections are within a small black dashed line which represents the border of the march. Within these three sections there are labels for towns, rivers, and lakes. Berlin is situated in the center of Marchia Media and labeled with a small font. Outside of this march the kingdoms of Saxony and Poland are labeled to the south and east, respectively. The detailed cartouche in the bottom left corner translates to, “This marquisate was first erected by the emperor Henry I in 923, and he was the first marquis named Henry, for once he was under the Saxon leaders.” The text is surrounded by a dark yellow mechanical-looking border and four inward facing heads with red cardinal hats. Angels and figures exist in the ornate border of the cartouche, with a crest showing three red dots at the top of the image. A scale showing 12 German Miles is in the bottom right corner, outlined with similar imagery as the cartouche in the lower left. The map is surrounded by a detailed border, with labels in the four cardinal directions: “Septemtrio” in the North, “Occidens” in the West, “Oriens” in the East, and “Meridies” in the South. The map was created by Abraham Ortelius who was a prominent mapmaker at the time and was based out of Antwerp (Koeman 2007). Ortelius was known for creating the first modern day atlas, which may have featured many regional maps like this one. Because Germany at this time was made up of different territories and regions, many German mapmakers at this time made maps about warfare and political history (Meurer 2007). This particular map doesn’t seem to focus on making …
creator: Abraham Ortelius
source: Ortelius, Abraham. “Brandebvrgensis marchae descriptio.” Place of publication not identified: publisher not identified, 1598.
date: 1598
contributor: Special Collections, Carleton College, Northfield, MN
rights: Rights for maps held by individual publishers and institutions. Thumbnails displayed constitute fair use.
format: sheet map removed from an atlas or book
language: Latin
type: regional map
identifier: Carleton Library Special Collections (Flat Files) (G5700 1400-1800 Map 10)

Geography of Africa
description: Livio Sanuta’s Geografia dell’Africa contains 12 two-page black and white maps, sketched by Livio and engraved by his brother Giulio, depicting Africa and its surrounding waters from a variety of perspectives. Published in Venice in 1588, this book, including its maps, builds on foundational trends in Venetian cartography. Because the Venetian economy depended on maritime trade, much of Venetian cartography, beginning with the creation of portolan charts, focused on waterways. Eventually, by the sixteenth century, during Sanuto’s lifetime, hydrographic mapping took hold as cartographers sought to map river channels and systems for the purpose of environmental planning. Giacomo Gastaldi’s topologically-focused Map of 1564 presents the southern tip of Africa’s hydrographical system and inspired Sanuto’s maps shortly after. Like Gastaldi, Sanuto sought to depict as many of Africa’s geographical features as possible based on eye witness accounts, rather than simply treating Ptolemy’s Geography, a dominant text at the time, as incontestable. Maps one through 11 of Sanuto’s work capture specific regions of Africa, and five of those maps depict different sections of the Mediterranean Sea and the African coastline. The other six maps depict snapshots of other corners of Africa. The twelfth map depicts Africa as a whole. Due to Sanuto’s geographic focus, hills and mountain ranges symbolized by bumplike shapes litter this map, although the difference in size among the symbols is somewhat unclear. Sanuto also depicts rivers, which appear on the map as lines. Each of the rivers are labeled in Italian, as are the surrounding seas, in addition to some of the cities and larger regions. Sanuto concentrates most of his labels and geographic features in the top of his map though, causing some of the labels to almost blend in with the geographic symbols. The surrounding areas of the map primarily depict the ocean, which is represented by a collection of faint dots, and a few sketches …
creator: Livio Sanuto
creator: Giulio Sanuto
source: Sanuto, Livio. Geografia dell’Africa. Venice: Damiano Zenaro, 1588.
publisher: Sanuto, Livio. Geografia dell’Africa: Venice 1588. Amsterdam: Theatrum orbis terrarum, 1965.
date: 1588
contributor: Special Collections, Carleton College, Northfield, MN
rights: Rights for maps held by individual publishers and institutions. Thumbnails displayed constitute fair use.
relation: https://exhibits.stanford.edu/renaissance-exploration/catalog?f%5Bauthor_person_facet%5D%5B%5D=Sanuto%2C+Livio%2C+1520-1576
format: Atlas
language: Italian
type: Atlas
identifier: Carleton Library Special Collections (Folio) (DT7 .S25 1965)

Depiction of Dante’s Cosmos
description: Considered to be the first illuminated manuscript of Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy, the Dante Poggiali (named for the man who discovered it) contains the full story of Dante’s tour of hell, purgatory, and heaven. The illustration here is one of the largest and most detailed in the several hundred page volume. Decorated with vibrant colors and gold leaf, the work is loosely attributed to Pacino di Buonaguida, a Florentine painter who follows the style of the hugely influential Giotto and his humanist concern. Giotto’s artwork, like the image of Dante in the cosmos, is concerned with reconciling the human experience with the mystical nature of God’s creation. In humanist tradition, while the figures look true to life, the setting of the cosmos is abstract, merging the worlds of mortal life and God. The Dante Poggiali attempts to symbolically represent that which, according to the story, cannot ordinarily be comprehended by man. In the narrative, Dante himself is blinded by the heavens and puzzled by the order of nature, which must be described for him as he ascends away from the Earth. The lack of detail in the representation of the cosmos invites the viewer to map the particulars of space themselves, aided by the accompanying text. The character Dante is guided through the cosmic realms by the poet Virgil and eventually his lost love Beatrice, as seen here. Dante, in his typical red, is led by the embrace of the winged Beatrice to meet Christ, flanked by two angels. Dante is the only living human in this imagination of God's geometry, making him a first explorer in a space uncharted. The cosmos depicted are set in rings of deep blues, plotting the boundaries of the realms leading to Christ. Closest to Earth is the heaven of the moon, noted by the silver circle, then the six golden planets, realm of the stars, and eventually the place where the angels, and eventually God, reside. What is unusual about the illumination is that typically the Ptolemaic universe is cent…
creator: Pacino di Buonaguida (attributed)
source: Rome, Biblioteca nazionale centrale di Firenze, Pal. 313
publisher: Roma: Società Dante Alighieri, 2013.
date: 1330-50
contributor: Special Collections, Carleton College, Northfield, MN
rights: Rights for maps held by individual publishers and institutions. Thumbnails displayed constitute fair use.
format: Map in a manuscript
language: Italian
type: Cosmographical Diagram
identifier: Carleton Library Special Collections (Horizontal Shelving)(PQ4301 .A1 2013

Map of Tetela de Ocampo in Puebla
description: Set as but one element of a collection of facsimiles, this map finds itself alongside other colonial Spanish maps of the territories of New Spain that make up modern day México. These maps include: - Mapa de Nueva Galicia: Estado de Jalisco (1550) - Mapa del Pueblo de Tetela de Ocampo (1581) - Plano de Antequera: Oaxaca de Juárez (1771) - Plano de Guanajuato (XVIII century) This one in particular is a city view of the settlement Tetela de Ocampo in Puebla. Visually, the map is drawn in portrait -- taller than it is wide. It places emphasis on the geography surrounding the cityscape: blue-gray chains of what appear to be mountains or hills or bluffs go throughout the landscape, together encircling five basin- or valley-like areas of exaggerated buildings painted in yellow. The largest basin is centralized, in the upper half, with smaller ones to its upper and lower left, as well as the upper and lower right. There is no compass rose to orient cardinal directionality. Churches in particular are emblematically depicted large and outstanding from their surroundings, the largest of which being near the center, drawn as if made of brick, and captioned underneath as: "San(c)ta [sic] Maria Assump(ción)". The caption "Tetela" appears above the church, with a miniature priest standing behind it holding a book -- presumably a bible -- in hand. There is a second person in this central area towards the left of the church -- wearing a cloak and with staff in hand. These are the only two persons not drawn as travelling on the roads that weave through the map. Those roads are shaded reddish-brown, and feature caravans of men with horses and individual men. They are captioned, with the road to the right of the map being the "Camino real de México". All persons depicted on the map appear to be Spanish, and are clothed in Spanish dress. There appear to be rivers depicted as wavy lines sourcing from hills/mountains and heading outwards. They are not coloured. The trees are generally de…
creator: Unknown, possibly Marcos del Cuenca
source: Colección: Sección de Cartografía y Artes Gráficas — Signatura: C-099-013 — Nº de registro: 04035 — Notas: En el ángulo inferior derecho sello en tinta negra con las siglas de la Academia: "R.A.D.L.H."
publisher: Madrid : Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte : Testimonio Compañía Editorial
date: commissioned by the magistrate don Cristóbal Godínez y Maldonado on 9 July, 1581
contributor: Special Collections, Carleton College, Northfield, MN General Archive of the Indies (Archivo General de Indias), Seville Ministerio de Educación, Cultura, y Deporte Española, Madrid (Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture, and Sport) Emilio Olmos García-Calamarte (como representante legal de: / as a legal representative of:) Testimonio Compañia Editorial, S.A. TEyPE, S.A., Sauce, 30. Torrejón de Ardoz, Madrid José Manuel Ruiz Asencio, Catedrático de Paleografía de la Universidad de Valladolid (Professor of Paleography at the University of Valladolid)
rights: Rights for maps held by individual publishers and institutions. Thumbnails displayed constitute fair use.
relation: https://www.facsimilefinder.com/facsimiles/mapas-de-mexico-archivo-indias-facsimile https://bibliotecadigital.rah.es/es/consulta/registro.do?id=62218
format: sheet map taken from a collection, 443 x 703 mm
language: Spanish (Castillian), Latin
type: regional map, city view
identifier: Carleton Library Special Collections (Horizontal Shelving) (G4411.A1 1550 M3 2002) https://bridge.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/01BRC_INST/1tn7c8c/alma991016542481902971

Portolan Chart, 1508
description: This portolan chart of the Mediterranean, drawn in 1508 by Andrea Benincacsa, is illustrated on a complete piece of parchment. Benincasa, the son of prolific map maker Grazioso Benincasa, was both a chart maker and public servant at the turn of the 15th Century in Ancona, Italy. In the city, he was in charge of harbor fortifications for a number of years, though he continued to make charts as a part-time occupation. Portolan charts were a form of nautical maps utilized in the medieval Mediterranean Sea. This emphasis on navigation is evidenced by the highly detailed depiction of the coastline, including both harbors and hazards to ships. Though it is likely that portolan charts were used on board vessels, this map is among a contingent of high-quality works that were meant for display by merchants, captains, and other individuals interested in or tied to the maritime world in the Mediterranean. Upon first glance, the Rhumb lines that form a dense array across the parchment signal the navigational utility of the chart. The patterning represents wind lines which extend from illustrated wind roses at various points. These lines are drawn with alternating colors, with black ink representing the four cardinal winds and red ink representing the quarter winds. These wind lines aided in the execution and planning of maritime journeys as sailors plotted routes along known winds to reach the final destination efficiently. Though this map centers the Mediterranean Sea, it also includes Northern Africa, the British Isles in the Eastern Atlantic, the Black Sea, the Levant, and Northern Europe. Given that this map is meant for maritime use, coastal cities and ports are the main focus of the chart. Finely written place-names run perpendicularly along the detailed coast lines in both red and black ink. Red ink is utilized to denote cities and ports of importance. Through the writing of these place-names, the reader can see the expansive knowledge of the greater Mediterranean held b…
creator: Andrea Benincasa
source: Benincasa, Andrea. Portolan Chart; Borgiano VIII. Vatican City: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, 1508.
publisher: Seekarte des Andrea Benincasa (Borgiano VIII). Ancona, Italy, 1508. Facsimile with introduction and commentaries by Arthur Dürst. Vatican City : Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, 1984.
date: 1508
contributor: Special Collections, Carleton College, Northfield, MN
rights: Rights for maps held by individual publishers and institutions. Thumbnails displayed constitute fair use.
relation: https://digi.vatlib.it/view/MSS_Borg.Carte.naut.VIII
format: Sheet Map
language: Latin
type: Regional Map
identifier: Carleton Library Special Collections (Flat Files) (G3200 1508 .D87 1984)

Menazilname, 1537
description: The collection of images in Matrakçı Nasuh’s Menazilname serves as an “account of Sultan Süleyman Süleyman Khan’s Iraqi campaign,” according to an article on the map from Facsimile Finder. In this book there are 107 paintings printed with ink on paper. These paintings show, in stylized detail, the places that the Ottoman army visited while traveling from Istanbul to Baghdad and their return. The artist was a Bosnian in the Ottoman court who is regarded as a talented geographer, historian, and mathematician, but was not on the court of painters. The type of cartography that Nasuh illustrated matched the tradition of Ottoman cartography at the time: highly stylized and not based on navigational accuracy, instead displaying conditions and places at the time the Ottomans encountered them. Whether it be the vast countryside in spring with vibrant greens, Mesopotamian villages, or major cities with landmarks represented, this type of map serves as an aid to visualize the landscape of the campaign, even centuries later. When you look at this book, each flip of the page shows an entirely different image. As the campaign enters a desert area, the landscape turns tan; as the weather changes from springtime, when the campaign started, to other seasons, the viewer can tell by the color scheme. Interspersed between full-page landscape images are passages in Ottoman Turkish regarding the details of the map. Sometimes the text is written on full pages, with no images; at other times, it is included in the images, describing the qualities of the illustrations. The image of Istanbul, depicted in this manuscript is centered on the Golden Horn and is rich with detail. However, with further analysis, one will note that no people are shown, a stylistic choice standard for Ottoman cartography in this time period. There are also no roads between buildings. The Hagia Sophia, Topkapı Palace, Galata Tower, and even the Maiden Tower are all shown. The map is positioned lengthwise on two sheet…
creator: Matrakçı Nasuh
source: Nasuh, Matrakçı. Beyân-ı Menâzil-i Sefer-i Irâkeyn-i Sultân Süleymân Hân; Menazilname. Istanbul: İstanbul Üniversitesi Kütüphanesi, 1537.
publisher: Nasuh, Matrakçı. Swordsman, Historian, Mathematician, Artist, Calligrapher Matrakçı Nasuh and His Menazilname : Account of the Stages of Sultan Süleyman Khan’s Iraqi Campaign. İstanbul: MASA, 2015.
date: 1537
contributor: Special Collections, Carleton College, Northfield, MN
rights: Rights for maps held by individual publishers and institutions. Thumbnails displayed constitute fair use.
relation: Presentation at Facsimile Finder
relation: View of Istanbul at Wikimedia Commons
format: Map in book
language: Ottoman Turkish
type: Regional map
identifier: Special Collections (Books, Quarto) ; DR507.N373 A83 2015

Zee-Atlas
description: The van Keulen family firm, known as “In de Gecroonde Lootsman”, which created the Zee-Atlas, “dominated Dutch maritime cartography for two centuries,” roughly from the 1680s to the 1880s (History of Cartography 837; cites De Vries 2005), and became the official chart suppliers for the Dutch East India Company in 1743 (Ritchie, 15). In the seventeenth century, the Netherlands was world renowned for its flourishing maritime cartography business, and, in fact, had a “near-monopoly” on sea charting until the mid-1600s (History of Cartography 898). Interestingly, Johannes van Keulen, the founder of the firm, started out in 1678 not as a cartographer, but as a book binder and seller, later branching out into protractor making, before getting a privilege from the governments of Holland and West Friesland in 1680 to make pilot guides and sea atlases. His first publication, the Zee-Atlas (officially De groote nieuwe vermeerderde zee-atlas), which contained 40 charts at its inception, and its follow-up, the Zee-Fakkel, paved the way for van Keulen and his firm to become the world’s preeminent supplier of maritime charts (History of Cartography 899-900, Lawrence Ruderman). The Zee-Atlas contains only charts, with no accompanying text, while the Zee-Fakkel, a pilot guide, contains both charts and text. Because the Zee-Atlas is mostly visual, credit for its success should be given in large part to its artist, Jan Luyken, and its chart compiler, Claes Jansz Vooght. Jan Luyken and his son, Caspar, were extremely prolific engravers and book illustrators in Amsterdam from the mid-1600s to the beginning of the 1700s (Het Geheugen), while Vooght was a mathematician, surveyor, and teacher of navigation, and both created charts based on the knowledge of the “seafaring community”, and adapted charts by foreign map makers (History of Cartography 900). The maps themselves contain aspects common to portolan charts and maritime maps of the period, including rhumb lines and depictions of shi…
creator: Johannes van Keulen
source: Van Keulen, Johannes. Zee-Atlas. Amsterdam, Netherlands, 1680
publisher: Keulen, Johannes van. Zee-Atlas : de grootie nieuwe vermeerderde Zee-Atlas ofte Water-Werelt ; [ein Meilenstein der See-Kartographie]. Nachdr. mit einem Vorw. von Imre Josef Demhardt und einer Übers. der niederländ. Einl. von Sigrid Barthel. Darmstadt: Wiss. Buchges, 2008.
date: 1680
contributor: Special Collections, Carleton College, Northfield, MN
rights: Rights for maps held by individual publishers and institutions. Thumbnails displayed constitute fair use.
relation: https://press.uchicago.edu/books/HOC/HOC_V4/HOC_VOLUME4_M.pdf
format: atlas
language: Dutch
type: atlas
identifier: Special Collections (Horizontal Shelving) G1026.K48 2008.

Treasury of the True Riches of Salvation
description: The star chart in Stephan Fridolin’s Treasury of the True Riches of Salvation is a woodcut print depicting Earth at the center of the solar system. Stephan Fridolin worked in a Franciscan monastery in Nuremberg, Germany where he wrote Schatzbehalter to spread knowledge of Christ’s passion. The maps and drawings in the 1491 book are attributed to Michael Wolgemut, who engraved 96 unique woodcuts for this book. Michael Wolgemut was a medieval artist who specialized in woodcuts as seen in Schatzbehalter. Michael was known to be a competent artist but is most well known for mentoring Albrecht Dürer who went on to be an extremely successful printer and painter. The focus of the chart is Earth as the center of the universe. Earth is represented by an image of baby Jesus Christ lying on the ground. Jesus is surrounded by two women, one of which is Mary. Mary has a halo around her head while the other woman’s hair is covered by cloth. Rolling hills lie behind Jesus with houses and foliage as background detail. Ruffled cloth is drawn to surround this image of Jesus. Outside Earth is a series of concentric circles divided into 36 segments. The outermost circle contains a symbol of each zodiac sign with Gemini at the top. The closest circle to Earth depicts the moon in the same segment as Taurus, the next contains Mercury which is portrayed between Sagittarius and Capricorn, the next contains Venus with Aquarius, followed by the Sun, again depicted between Sagittarius and Capricorn, Mars under Aries, Jupiter between Libra and Virgo, and lastly Saturn under Gemini. Each celestial body occupies a circle further from Earth at the center as the bodies presumably got further from Earth. The moon and sun have symbols of their own rather than the six-pointed star symbol used for the other five planets in the solar system. Because the planets appear static in a constantly moving solar system and because Jesus Christ as the centerpiece of the chart, it can be assumed that this chart de…
creator: Stephan Fridolin
creator: Michael Wolgemut
source: Stephan Fridolin. Schatzbehalter der wahren Reichtümer des Heils. Nuremberg, Anton Koberger, 1491.
publisher: Fridolin, Stephan. Schatzbehalter. Portland, Or: Collegium Graphicum, 1972.
date: 1491
contributor: Special Collections, Carleton College, Northfield, MN
rights: Rights for maps held by individual publishers and institutions. Thumbnails displayed constitute fair use.
relation: Digitized Copy at the Library of Congress
format: Map in Book
language: German
type: Celestial Map
type: Cosmographical Diagram
identifier: Carleton Library Special Collections (Books, Quarto) (BT590.I3 F7 1972)