Mapping the New World: Renaissance Maps from the American Museum in Britain

Armitage, Anne; Beresford, Laura

ISBN 10: 1857598229 / ISBN 13: 9781857598223

Published by Scala Arts & Heritage Publishers Ltd, 2013

About this Item

Scala Arts & Heritage Publishers Ltd.; 2013. Paperback. Foreword by Richard Wendorf (Director The American Museum in Britain). Glossary to rear. 128 pp. Uncreased spine. Bottom right hand corner creased.

Seller Inventory # 0105903

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Mapping the New World: Renaissance Maps from the American Museum in Britain
• Publisher: Scala Arts & Heritage Publishers Ltd
• Publication Date: 2013
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1857598229
• ISBN 13: 9781857598223
• Binding: Soft cover
• Condition: Good
• Seller catalogs:
  • Cartography

About this title

Synopsis

• Showcases the finest examples amongst the 200 exquisitely detailed maps donated to the American Museum in Britain
• Third in a series for the American Museum in Britain produced by Scala

Illustrating the changing shape of the Americas as Renaissance cartographers (working from ancient and medieval sources) learned more of the New World, this collection is the third in a series produced by Scala, which showcases the core collections of the American Museum in Britain.

Dr. Dallas Pratt, an American psychiatrist and collector, donated over 200 exquisitely detailed maps to the American Museum in Britain, until his death in 1994. This gift is acclaimed by map scholars as the finest private holding of pre-1600 printed world maps on the other side of the Atlantic.

Spurred on by thoughts of treasure - particularly gold, silver, gems and spices - European travelers changed the shape of the New World as they mapped the Americas from the 15th to the 17th centuries. Whereas medieval maps illustrated theology rather than geography, the Renaissance revived the classical discipline of scientifically mapping land mass. Such precision was entirely practical: only by exact measurement could the rich New World territories be claimed, plundered and ruled by its Old World conquerors.

About the Author

Anne Armitage is the museum archivist emerita, who was responsible for producing many map- based exhibitions at the museum.