Posts from — February 2008

The Richmond Times-Dispatch recently reported that a generous donation from Seymour I. Schwartz, distinguished alumni professor in the University of Rochester’s Department of Surgery, ensures that the University of Virginia is now home to some of the world’s finest rare maps.

The monetary value of the collection is unknown, but 80 year old Schwartz says he

…doesn’t even want to hear questions about the worth of the maps he collected for more than 40 years. All he’ll say is that the collection he started in 1964 didn’t cost much then, relatively speaking.

Schwartz said maps moved him intensely. He loved looking at the maps in his collection every day. He appreciated their beauty and historical meaning and even holding them.

The collection of 16th-, 17th- and 18th- century maps includes:

famous explorer Hernando Cortes’ 1524 map of Mexico City — the first to show Florida;

a 1508 map that is one of the first to show the Western Hemisphere; and

George Washington’s map of the Ohio River Valley drawn when he was an unknown surveyor.

About 50 of the maps are currently on display in  “On the Map,” at the school’s special collection library. The exhibit will be on display until January, 2009.

The full story, which includes a brief slideshow, can be read here.

[tags]antique maps, map collections, university of virginia, map exhibits[/tags]

The New York City Borough of Manhattan President Scott Stringer is beginning the arduous, but important task, of preserving as many as 4000 maps depicting Manhattan, some dating back to the 1700s. The maps, housed at the Manhattan Topographical Bureau, trace the development of Manhattan. Some of the maps are being scanned, but nearly 1000 of the maps need “considerable restoration”. One of the maps, from 1865, is used regularly to show developers where water courses run underground around Manhattan so they know what to be prepared for if, and when, they dig.

Watch the video clip and read the story.

[tags]manhattan, historic maps, city maps, map preservation[/tags]

A 526-year-old map, stolen from the National Library of Spain last year, has been returned to Spain by Australian authorities. The map was from a rare edition of the atlas Cosmographia. It was recovered in Austraila last year after 18 documents were stolen from Spain’s National Library in a much publicized robbery.

See the full story, ”Australia returns rare 1482 map to Spain” at the Sydney Morning Herald’s web site.

The Austrailian Broadcasting Corporation’s web site also has a news item on the return of the map, including a 3 minute audio clip on the 15th Century map and it’s return to the Spanish.

[tags]map theft, stolen maps, antique maps, Cosmographia, Ptolemy[/tags]