Journeys over Land and Sea
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Journeys over Land and Sea Journeys of the Mind Journeys of the Imagination

Journeys Over Land and Sea: Travelers and Places

Printed maps and illustrated accounts of Europe, Africa, Asia, and America preserved knowledge contained in early manuscripts and contemporary travels and disseminated it to a wider audience.


James Cook (1728-1779)
A Voyage towards the South Pole, and round the World performed in His Majesty’s ships the Resolution and Adventure in the years 1772, 1773, 1774, and 1775
London: W. Strahan and Y. Cadell, 1774. 2 vols..

A Voyage towards the South Pole, and round the World performed in His Majesty’s ships the Resolution and Adventure in the years 1772, 1773, 1774, and 1775 James Cook’s voyages initiated the modern era of scientific exploration. Establishing a model for future expeditions, his three voyages had an explicitly scientific rather than political purpose, carrying artists and naturalists who brought back large collections of plants, animals, and ethnographic artifacts from the regions visited. In his second voyage (1772-75), considered by many the most remarkable voyage ever, Cook circumnavigated the world at the Antarctic Circle with the help of a chronometer, a new instrument that enabled him to determine his ship’s longitude accurately.

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Edward S. Curtis (1868-1952)
The North American Indian
Seattle, Cambridge, Mass.: E.S.Curtis, The University Press, 1907-30. 20 vols. text, 20 portfolios of loose plates.
Gift of Mrs. Edward H. Harriman

The North American Indian Edward S. Curtis, a professional photographer in Seattle, devoted his life to documenting what was perceived to be a vanishing race. His monumental publication presented to the public an extensive ethnographical study of numerous tribes, and his photographs remain memorable icons of the American Indian. The Smithsonian Libraries holds a complete set of his work, donated by Mrs. Edward H. Harriman, whose husband had conducted an expedition to Alaska, with Curtis as photographer, in 1899.

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Athanasius Kircher (1602-1680)
Mundus subterraneus (Underground world)
Amsterdam: Joannern Janssonium and Elizeum Weyerstraten, 1664-65.

Mundus subterraneus A man of intense curiosity, Jesuit scholar Athanasius Kircher pursued research in geography, language, astronomy, mathematics, and medicine. He authored more than 40 books, including Mundus subterraneus, perhaps the earliest printed work on geophysics and vulcanology. Recent earthquakes and the 1630 eruption of Mount Vesuvius prompted Kircher’s interest. To satisfy his inquisitiveness, he climbed Vesuvius and was lowered by a rope into the crater. In this book, he speculated on the nature of phenomena that occur below the Earth’s surface, and explained and illustrated the origins of fossils, hot springs, and volcanoes.

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Olaus Magnus (1490-1557)
Historia delle genti et della natura delle cose settentrionali (History of the northern peoples and nature of things)
Venice: Giunti, 1565.
Gift of the Burndy Library

Historia delle genti et della natura delle cose settentrionali Olaus Magnus (Olav Stov), a Swedish bishop who traveled widely in Scandinavia and Europe during the mid-1500s, compiled the first major work on the peoples, geography, economy, and fauna of northern Europe. Olaus Magnus intended his work, first published in Latin (Rome, 1555), to be an explication of his great map of the lands of the north, which he created in 1539. Woodcuts show northern peoples, including Lapps and Finns, engaged in their daily occupations, which were no doubt exotic and strange to southern Europeans. The volume also includes some of the first illustrations of whaling, and readers may have readily accepted as real the various fantastical monsters depicted throughout the popular and widely translated book.

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Johannes Nieuhof (1618-1672)
Het gezantschap . . . aan den grooten Tartarischen Cham, den tegenwoordigen keizer van China (An embassy . . . to the Grand Tartar Cham, emperor of China)
Amsterdam: by Jacob van Neurs, 1665.
Mary Stuart Book Fund

Het gezantschap . . . aan den grooten Tartarischen Cham, den tegenwoordigen keizer van China This remarkable travel account by an agent of the Dutch East India Company details the culture, landscape, peoples, architecture, festivals, and cities of 17th-century China. During the age of exploration and imperialism by Western powers in the Far East, Europeans craved information on exotic lands, and this book profoundly affected them. Designers copied its illustrations of Chinese ornament and used them as inspiration for creating decorative objects and furniture.

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Ptolemy (about A.D. 100 - 170)
Liber geographiae (Book of geography)
Venice: Iacobum Pentium de Leucho, 1511.
Gift of the Burndy Library

Liber geographiae Claudius Ptolemaeus, an astronomer and mathematician living in Alexandria, Egypt, summed up the geography of the known world -- essentially the Roman Empire -- in the second century A.D. He systematically listed the latitudes and longitudes of some 8,000 places in Europe, Africa, and Asia, and described methods of projection for drawing maps. Ptolemy’s work represented a major advance in the science of mapmaking and, despite its errors, retained its authority for almost 1,400 years. It survived for centuries through manuscript copying and was put into print in 1482, all the while expanding as geographical knowledge increased. The 1511 edition is the first to include a bit of North America in the world map.

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Bernhard von Breydenbach (d. 1497)
Peregrinatio in terram sanctam (Pilgrimage to the holy lands)
Mainz: Erhard Reuwich, 1486.
Gift of the Burndy Library

Peregrinatio in terram sanctam Breydenbach’s account of his 1483 pilgrimage to the Holy Land is thought to be the first printed travel book to contain illustrations. Fellow traveler Erhard Reuwich, the first painter known to have published a book, created its fine hand-colored woodcuts. His illustrations include the first use of panoramas to depict cities. Panoramas, enlivened by great detail, became a popular illustrative form in early printed books.

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Martin Zeiller (1589-1661)
Topographia Galliae (Topography of Gaul)
Frankfort: Caspar Merian, 1655-61. 4 vols..
Mary Stuart Book Fund

Topographia Galliae Zeiller, an Austrian cartographer, dedicated this four-volume survey of the provinces and towns of France to its king, Louis XIV. (It was part of an extensive geographic survey of many European countries.) The volume containing his 300 illustrations is one of the period's finest examples of hand-colored engraving. The finely rendered pictures preserve many details of buildings, roadways, and cities that no longer exist or have been significantly altered. Topographia is an excellent example of the art of the book in 17th-century France and one of the most comprehensive contemporary guides to its cities and structures.

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Journeys over Land and Sea Journeys of the Mind Journeys of the Imagination
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