An online exhibit from the Bibliotheque nationale, L’Âge d’or des cartes marines: Quand l’Europe découvrait le monde, includes many images of early maps and related illustrations from the late Middle Ages and early modern eras.
New worlds by Sarazin, Jean-Yves
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Publication Date: 2012
This is a catalog for an exhibition from the Bibliothèque national. It features color images and analyses of five nautical atlases from the early 14th to the late 17th century. The maps depict regions in Africa, the Americas, and Asia.
Maps are often as much a visual art form as they are a practical tool for navigation. Of particular visual interest are display maps; maps that often used size and beauty to convey messages of regional and social status and power. Magnificent Maps brings together the best surviving examples in order to illustrate their role in early modern Europe and describe the settings in which they were displayed. Most of the maps collected in Magnificent Maps date from the period 1450 to 1800, the heyday of this approach to mapping. offer vivid descriptions of their original settings and examine their dual roles as propaganda and art.