Maps, Globes, and Atlases
Maps from antiquity and the middle ages are extremely scarce, given that each had to be painstakingly drawn and illustrated by hand. Those that survived, such as Ptolemy's eight-volume atlas "Geographia", were often preserved by Islamic scholars or the ecclesiastical institutions. After the “rediscovery” of ancient Greco-Roman knowledge, the next major advance in cartography occurred during the Age of Exploration, during the 15th-16th centuries. Woodblock printing, which allowed maps to made faster and more consistently, became the main mode of cartographic production in the 15th century, but it was replaced by engraved copper plates in the 16th century.
Because maps, atlases, and globes of that time contained sensitive territorial data, they were regarded as classified national information and were jealously guarded. With the establishment of colonies and the expansion of trade networks, which periodically resulted in military confrontations in the 17th-19th centuries, maps and atlases became less decorative and more accurate and factual. Antique maps, atlases, and globes frequently appear in auctions and often fetch high, sometimes even astronomical, prices due to their rarity, fine workmanship and historical significance. In addition to portraying geographical and territorial information, antique cartographic productions also reveal the geopolitical, economic, cultural and ideological landscapes of the past. Generally printed on paper, many antique maps and atlases disintegrated or were discarded as they became obsolete, and their ephemerality only adds to their appeal to collectors.
- Abraham Ortelius
- Celestial Globes
- Celestial maps, atlases, and planispheres
- Christopher Saxton
- Emanuel Bowen
- Frederick de Wit
- Gerardus Mercator
- Guillaume Delisle
- Herman Moll
- Jacques Nicolas Bellin
- James Wyld
- Jean Baptiste Bourguignon d'Anville
- Jodocus Hondius
- Johann Baptist Homann
- John Ogilby
- John Speed
- Leo Belgicus
- Martin Waldseemüller
- Matteo Ricci
- Nicolas de Fer
- Portolan Charts
- Samuel Augustus Mitchell Sr.
- Sebastian Münster
- The Mitchell Map
- Thomas Jefferys
- Thomas Kitchin
- William Faden
- Williem & Johannes Blaeu
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