Hey cartophiles, the National Library are hosting an exhibition of the world’s greatest and rarest maps. I hear you guys might be into that kind of thing.
Mapping Our World is a free event that runs from November until March next year, and contains what is considered the “most important map documenting Australia’s presence prior to the arrival of the British” which is no small thing.
Check out this video about it:
This remarkable exhibition brings together some of the world’s greatest maps, atlases, globes and scientific instruments, many of which have never before been seen in the southern hemisphere.
Treasured items from some of the world’s greatest map collections will tell the remarkable story of how Australia came to be on the map, and will reveal the history and struggle to imagine and document the world; from the earliest imaginings of the earth and the night sky through to Matthew Flinders’ landmark General Chart of Terra Australis or Australia in 1814.
The exhibition will take you on a spiritual, artistic and scientific journey, showing how European explorers gradually unravelled the secrets of the south land. Highlights of the exhibition include the magnificent Fra Mauro, Map of the world; the remarkable Boke of Idrography presented to Henry VIII; an intricate world map by the Benedictine monk Andreas Walsperger (1448); a fifteenth-century Ptolemy manuscript; magnificent and controversial ‘Dieppe’ charts; one of only four surviving copies of Mercator’s groundbreaking 1569 projection and original manuscript charts by Pacific navigators including Louis de Freycinet, James Cook and Matthew Flinders.
Mapping our World is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see rare and unique cartographic treasures from around the world.
Date: 7 November 2013 to 10 March 2014
Opening hours: Open from 10.00am daily with last entry at 5.00pm (closed Christmas Day)
Booking Link: Book tickets now