A free exhibition is opening soon at the National Library of Australia in Canberra, which may interest members.
Mapping Our World: Terra Incognita to Australia
Date: 7 November 2013 to 10 March 2014
Opening hours: Open from 10.00am daily with last entry at 5.00pm (closed Christmas Day)
Treasured items from some of the world’s greatest map collections will tell the remarkable story of how Australia came to be on the map, and will reveal the history and struggle to imagine and document the world; from the earliest imaginings of the earth and the night sky through to Matthew Flinders’ landmark General Chart of Terra Australis or Australia in 1814.
The exhibition will take you on a spiritual, artistic and scientific journey, showing how European explorers gradually unravelled the secrets of the south land. Highlights of the exhibition include the magnificent Fra Mauro, Map of the world; the remarkable Boke of Idrography presented to Henry VIII; an intricate world map by the Benedictine monk Andreas Walsperger (1448); a fifteenth-century Ptolemy manuscript; magnificent and controversial ‘Dieppe’ charts; one of only four surviving copies of Mercator’s groundbreaking 1569 projection and original manuscript charts by Pacific navigators including Louis de Freycinet, James Cook and Matthew Flinders.
Mapping our World is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see rare and unique cartographic treasures from around the world.
Actor Russell Crowe, who has an interest in maps, will open the exhibition on November 7. Entry is free however bookings are required.
