The only
comprehensive listing of early map image sites. The
monthly additions are indicated thus, e.g. {March
2002} at the end of the
entry. Since the symbols { } are not used elsewhere, you can search on
those elements [enter Ctrl+F]; e.g. 2002} will find entries added
at any time in that year)
Please notify any corrections or additions to the editor, Tony
Campbell:
Make sure to consult its copyright statement
before using any of the images you find
'Expeditions & Discoveries.
Sponsored exploration and scientific discovery in the modern age' (including 20 atlases (numbering 1,547
pages) among them the 1708 Cellarius and other star atlases, the 1792 Brion de la Tour world atlas, and the
1892 Berghaus Physikalischer Atlas, enlargeable to very high res. - Harvard University
Library Open Collections Program) {June, 2009}
German Atlases (a good
selection of 19th and 20th century German atlases, of various sorts, offering over 3000
images in medium or high res. ; look, e.g., for Berghaus, Spruner and Stieler under
'Perthes-Gotha' - Martin Hensen) {April, 2006}
Italian atlases. 'Maps and
Images' (about 350 images, enlargeable in sections to high res., mostly from atlases
published in Naples (16th-19th century) - Vladimiro Valerio) {November, 2008}
’World atlases’ (a chronological list, 1719-1929,
of about 85 world atlases, including, among others, works by d'Anville, Arrowsmith, Carey, Faden, Homann, Johnston [Physical Atlas],
Kitchin, Lisle, Moll, Robert de Vaugondy, S.D.U.K., Vandermaelen [all five vols], whose contents can be found, in high
res., on the David Rumsey Map Collection site [for further details about this site see Large
general sites]) {May, 2004; amended December 2007}
World
atlases. 'Facsimile Project for historical maps' (complete scans of the maps and charts in
a selection of atlases, initially Ptolemy (1513), Münster, Leo Belgicus, Seller,
Neptune François, D'Après de Mannevillette; enlargeable to high res. - MapHist.com)
{November, 2006}
World atlases (the
Geography,
Cartography section of digitised titles includes (apparently) high res. images, via
the free DjVu Browser Plug-in, of general atlases, e.g. by Peter Apian, Benedetto Bordone, Hugo
Favolius, Ptolemy (1511); also titles relating to the Levant [more titles being added
regularly] - Jewish National and University Library, Digitized Book Repository) {April,
2006}
Atlas Van Loon. ‘Atlases from the Maritime Museum’ (
many hundreds of maps and sea charts from the composite Atlas Van Loon in the Nederlands
Scheepvaartmuseum, viewable in ‘medium’ res. and zoomable to high res., comprising parts
of various atlases by Blaeu, e.g. 6 vols. of the Dutch edition of the Atlas Major (Koeman Bl
57), 5 vols of town books (Northern and Southern Netherlands, Rome, Papal States, Naples &
Sicily - Koeman Bl 70-74) and 2 vols from the French edition of the Atlas Mayor (France and
Switzerland - Koeman Bl 58); also sea atlases by Goos (1676 - Goos 1A) and Janssonius (1657 -
Me 173A); there is no general contents list but you can select ‘Browse’ for alphabetical lists
of makers (‘name’) and area covered (’location’) - see Diederick Wildeman, 'De atlas "Van Loon"
iin het Nederlands Scheepvaartmuseum', Caert-Thresoor 15:3 (1996): 75-6 - Koninklijke
Bibliotheek, Memory of the Netherlands Project) {December, 2004}
BLAEU Atlas. Volume 1: Europe,
Germany & the Low Countries (select the 150 dpi option for a much enlarged, high res. scan of all the maps in the
atlas, though a few are missing [the 500 dpi image is available for a fee]; the edition is not identified but is 1645 or later;
with an index of geographical names (taken from the map titles or the atlas index) - Charles E. Young Research Library,| UCLA Library)
{May, 2007}
BLAEU. Toonneel des Aerdrycks, ofte
Nieuwe Atlas (1659) (scans of the entire 6-volume atlas, enlargeable to high res., with a browsing display of thumbnails of
the maps ('Kartenindex') and geographical name indexes; see also the note on the background to the atlas's acquisition by the city of Leiden (in Dutch) - Regionaal Archief Leiden) {March,
2008}
Leonardo DATI, 'La Sfera' (11 medium res. images from the 15th century MS: from the
Biblioteca Riccardiana, Florence - Istituto Internazionale di Storia Economica "F.
Datini": Immagini per la storia economica e sociale) {July, 2003}
'Frederik V's Atlas' (images, viewable in zoomable high res., via the DjVu
plugin, from the 55-volume world atlas, comprising 400 maps given to Frederick V at his
birth in 1723, expanding to 3,535 plates by the time of his death in 1766; see the 38-
page analysis by Ib Rønne Kejlbo: 'Manuscript maps in the Frederik den Femtes Atlas' (1969) - the project
started in late 2003 and catalogue descriptions are still to be added [at present, (March
2004) there are no contents lists for the individual volumes] - Royal Library,
Copenhagen) {March, 2004}
Islamic. ‘The Book of Curiosities of the Sciences and Marvels for the Eyes’ (a hitherto unknown Arabic cosmographical treatise, the Kitab Ghara?ib al-funun wa-mulah? al-?uyun, known as the Book of
Curiosities - a copy, probably made in Egypt in the late 12th or 13th century, of an anonymous work compiled in the first half of the
11th century in Egypt. The manuscript (viewable in high res.) contains a unique series of maps and diagrams, most of which are
unparalleled in any other medieval work. These include diagrams of star-groups and comets; two world maps, one with a graphic scale (the
earliest surviving example); individual maps of islands and ports in the eastern Mediterranean; the Indian Ocean, and Caspian Sea, etc.,
with fully searchable Arabic text and English translation - online publication by The Bodleian Library (which acquired it in 2002) in
collaboration with The Oriental Institute, University of Oxford). [NB. The site is best viewed with Mozilla Firefox] {March, 2007}
maproom.org (high res. scans
of maps and various atlases, among them: Cary’s Travellers Companion (1790 - England & Wales), Thomas
Milner’s A Descriptive Atlas of Astronomy and of Physical and Political Geography (1850
- a World atlas), Philips' Handy Atlas of the Counties of Wales (n.d.)) {July, 2004}
Abraham
ORTELIUS (thumbnails of all 234 maps found in the various editions of
the Ortelius atlas, with commentary to each) {March, 2002}
+ 'Abraham ORTELIUS (1527-1598): Patriarch of our atlas' (includes over 30 maps from the
Theatrum Orbis Terrarum and Parergon - medium res. images from the University
Library, Amsterdam, 1998, with commentary in Dutch; and a related page with sample images from
a special edition of the atlas: 'Een aantal afbeeldingen uit het Nederlandstalige
Theatrum Orbis Terrarum (1584)') {March, 2001; updated December 2004}
'Abraham ORTELIUS. 1527-1598' (medium to fairly high res. illustrations of some of the atlas maps, accompanying
reproductions of earlier commentaries, in Swedish - VÖBAM) {January, 2006}
Abraham
ORTELIUS, Le miroir du monde (the entire contents, text and images, in high res.
, of the miniature edition published in Amsterdam by Zacharias Heyns, 1598 - Mannheimer Texte Online
(MATEO), Universitätsbibliothek Mannheim) {September, 2004}
PTOLEMY (scans, enlargeable to high res. of the entire contents of a highly ornate Latin manuscript on vellum [no
bibliographical details could be easily found] - National Digital Library, Biblioteka Narodowa, Warsaw, Poland) {May, 2007}
PTOLEMY. 'Fabricius 23 2º: Claudius Ptolemaeus, Geographia (fragment)' ("a
bifolium, containing parts of book eight of Ptolemy’s classic work on geography, including
three coloured maps", from a Greek MS, dated 1250-1300, the images enlargeable to high res.
- Center for Manuscripts & Rare Books, Royal Library, Copenhagen) {June, 2006}
PTOLEMY. HM 1092 "Wilton Codex" (a
full description and enlarged, very high res. images of the entire contents of the manuscript Geographia (Italy, c. 1480), containing 27 maps and 26
tables - Huntington Library) {March, 2004}
SCHAGEN. 'De Atlas van Schagen' (high res. scans of a group of 18 maps by
Gerrit/Gerard Van Schagen (active up to 1690)) {November, 2005}
School
Atlases (a chronological list of school atlases, 1777-1864, whose contents can be found,
in high res., on the David Rumsey Map Collection site [for further details about this
site see Large general sites]) {January, 2006}
Adolf STIELER, Schul-Atlas (Gotha:
Perthes, 1848) (enlargeable very high res. images of the 28 maps - University
of Pennsylvania Library, Schoenberg Center for Electronic Text & Image (SCETI))
{October, 2003}
Van der Hagen en Atlas Beudeker (a good selection
of high res. 17th century maps of various parts of the world, from the Royal Library, The Hague, and the British
Library, with the possibility to zoom in at up to 16 times the size of the original image; with an index of geographical
names and authors; also accessible here]
VAN KEULEN. ‘Atlases from the Maritime Museum. The Zee-Fakkel by Johannes van
Keulen’ (an expanded version of the Nieuwe Lichtende Zee-Fakkel in six volumes,
completed about 1790, with 571 maps and coastal views, viewable in ‘medium’ res. or
enlargeable to high res.; there is no general contents list but you can select ‘Browse’
for alphabetical lists of makers (‘name’) and area covered (’location’) - Koninklijke
Bibliotheek, Memory of the Netherlands Project) {December, 2004}
'VINGBOONS kaarten' (select
'Uitgebreid zoeken' and then, under 'Collectie', 'Vingboons kaarten' for an atlas of 115 charts and views by Johannes
Vingboons of various parts of the world [mostly East and West Indies?], apparently dated 1665, manuscripts, some
copied from engravings; enlargable by downloading Java Virtual Machine; brief notes on each map but no commentary on
the collection as a whole - Netherlands Nationaal Archief) {April, 2008}
Frederick de WIT. ‘Atlas’ (scans of the 29-sheet atlas,
supposedly enlargeable - University of Strasbourg) {March, 2007}
'Cartes anciennes
diverses - Planispheres' (16 world and polar maps, viewable in high res. via the
'Taille' link [most of the enlargement options beneath the thumbnail do not work] - reproduced
under licence from the Bibliothèque nationale de France (Gallica) by Jacques Zan) {November,
2005}
'Cartes du
monde connu' (comprising low res. reconstructions of 1-4 century maps, Ptolemaic maps, and
mappemondes - part of Delphine Dumas-Acolat's 'Terra Antiqua' site) {September, 2006}
+ 'An
overview of cartography' (small selection of maps of the world, N.
America and Canada, selected by Edward Dahl - low to medium res.)
'Wereldkaarten' (10 world
maps, 1570-1725, enlargeable to high res. - Amsterdam University Library,
Kaartencollectie) {November, 2005}
'World Historical Maps' (17
[original not 'historical'] maps, 1507-1720, enlargeable to high res. via LizardTech ExpressView Plugin - Yale University
Library) {November, 2007}
World maps (zoomable, medium to
high res., but slow-loading - a selection of 60 world maps,
1200-1700 from Richard B. Arkway, Inc. on the mapsage.com site)
{August, 2001}
World
maps (5 low res. images - Amsterdam University Library) {April,
2001}
World maps (medium res.
images from the Bibliothèque Royale Albert 1er, Brussels)
World maps. 'Crux - rare maps from the
State Library of NSW' (high res. MrSID images, ranging from a good selection of world maps to detailed Australian
subjects - "a selection of 85 [actually 89] manuscript and printed maps and charts, which illustrate the unveiling of the mysteries
of the islands and the continents of the Southern Hemisphere between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries") {March, 2004}
World maps. ’Immagini da mostre,
manoscritti e libri’ (click on Immagini/Images; scroll down left margin to Carte/Maps, for
slow-loading images (enlargeable to high res.) of the following maps:
‘Catalana’ (15th c.), Cantino (1502), Castiglioni (1525), Stati Estense (1580) - Biblioteca
Estense Universitaria Modena) {July, 2004}
+ World maps. ’Immagini da
mostre, manoscritti e libri’ (click on Immagini/Images; scroll down left margin to
Mostre/Exhibitions - ‘2002 Cartografia’, for 26 medium res., slow-loading images of world and
regional maps - Biblioteca Estense Universitaria Modena) {July, 2004}
World maps. 'Rare maps
from the collections of the State Library of NSW' (high res. MrSID images, ranging
from a good selection of world maps to detailed Australian subjects - "a selection of 85
[actually 89] manuscript and printed maps and charts, which illustrate the unveiling of the
mysteries of the islands and the continents of the Southern Hemisphere between the sixteenth
and eighteenth centuries"; see Table of contents) {March, 2004}
+ World maps. [The world of
historical maps] (an online exhibition, with a pdf catalogue and an
image gallery of the exhibits, which include Japanese maps of the world and Japan, enlargeable to high res., in
Japanese - Tulips, University of Tsukuba Library, October 2007) {October, 2007}
Giovanni LEARDO mappamundi, 1452 (high res. image, enlargeable in four quadrants
- American Geographical Society Library) {September, 2004}
Gerard MERCATOR
(high res., but slow-loading, details of the 18 sections - select
'AD USUM NAVIGANTIUM', then 'Die Weltkarte 1569' and then click on 'Die
Karte' (for a scrollable, low res. image of the entire 1569 world
map/chart); 'en detail' (for the separate sheets); and 'Die Legenden'
(for the 16 legends - given only in German translation) - Wilhelm
Krücken) {November, 2001}
Peutinger Table/Tabula Peutingeriana see under that heading on the Themes page of the Images or Texts section
'PTOLEMY's
World' (various versions of the Ptolemy world map enlargeable to
very high res. , though slow-loading - James Ford Bell Library,
University of Minnesota) {March, 2002}
Matteo
RICCI's "Kamyou Bankoku Zenzu" (high res. images of a Japanese copy of the 1602 (?)
world map - Kano Collection, Tohoku University Library) {March, 2004}
'The SAWLEY Map' (click on the picture for a high res. image of the Sawley Map, from the 'Imago
mundi' by Honorius Augustodunensis, probably drawn in Durham, c. 1190 (Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, MS
66, Part 1); see also the general note Mapping the world
; featured in the 2009 exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 'Pen and Parchment: Drawing in the
Middle Ages') {June, 2009}
Ferdinand VERBIEST world map (the Eastern
hemisphere of the globe (in 'Complete map of the world' [Kunyu quantu]), i.e. Europe, Asia and Africa; zoom in to high
res.; with some translations of the text blocks - J. Paul Getty Museum) {December, 2007}
WALDSEEMÜLLER world map, 1507 (browse the Creator index for the author’s name, once this is
retrieved click on the picture; this leads to MrSID images of the recently acquired 12-sheet
map, from which details can be seen at very high res.; an alternative, quicker route is to go straight to the map and download the MrSID software - Library of Congress) {March,
2005}
William of Conches 'De Philosophia Mundi' (a facsimile [France,
second half of 12th century] including enlargeable, very high res. images of
circular world maps (ff. 13r and 15r) and various astronomical diagrams - University of
Pennsylvania Library, Schoenberg Center for Electronic Text & Image (SCETI)) {October,
2003}
Wit. Frederick de
Wit wall-maps of the world and four continents (click on "Naar de viewer" at the foot of the first screen for split-
screen comparisons, enlargeable to very high res., of the five maps (late 17th century) before/after restoration;
text in Dutch - Westfries Museum} {July, 2008}
For medieval world maps see, under the name of each, or under
'Medieval', in Themes
