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Girl's Day
The Japanese art of Ukiyo-e (“Pictures of the floating [or sorrowful] world”) developed in the city of Edo (now Tokyo) during the Tokugawa or Edo Period (1600-1868), a relatively peaceful era during which the Tokugawa shoguns ruled Japan and made Edo the seat of power. The Ukiyo-e tradition of woodblock printing and painting continued into the 20th century. This print is one sheet of an illustrated book from between 1716 and 1736. It shows three richly dressed women or girls eating and drinking, probably celebrating Hina Matsuri (Girl's day ...
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Library of Congress
Portable Atlas, or, the New Theater of War in Europe
Daniel de la Feuille was a watchmaker, goldsmith, engraver, and bookseller in Amsterdam in the late 17th and early 18th centuries. He was also a prolific mapmaker. In this “portable atlas,” de la Feuille documented the intricacies of the War of Spanish Succession (1701-14), which began after the Habsburg king of Spain, Charles II, died and left his kingdom to Philip, the Duke of Anjou and the grandson of the French Bourbon king, Louis XIV. Worried that France’s Sun King intended to dominate Europe by consolidating his power in ...
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Library of Congress
Journal of the Voyage of Laurent Lange to China
Swedish born Lorenz Lange was among the many West Europeans to enter Russian service during the reign of Peter the Great. In 1715, he was sent to China as a special envoy to promote Russian commercial interests. This book recounts his overland journey through Tobol'sk, Tomsk, Eniseisk, Irkutsk, the Trans-Baikal region, and northern China. He remained in Beijing for two years. Based on his excellent reporting, the tsar sent Lange back to Bejing as consul in 1719 to supervise the Russian caravan traders in the Chinese capital. His mission ...
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Library of Congress
California or New Carolina: Place of Apostolic Works of Society of Jesus at the Septentrional America
Nicholas de Fer (1646-1720) was a French cartographer and publisher of atlases. This hand-colored map by de Fer from 1720 is actually a pirated copy of a manuscript map of 1696 by Father Eusebio Kino (1645-1711). Kino was an Italian-born Jesuit priest who was trained as a cartographer. Best known for his work in establishing missions and in defending the rights of Indians, he also made important geographic discoveries. In the 1680s and 1690s he explored Pimería Alta in present-day southern Arizona and northern Mexico. His explorations of Baja California ...
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Library of Congress
Brazil: According to New Surveys by Messrs. of the Royal Academy of Sciences, etc.
As seen in this map, much of Brazil was still uncharted territory in the early 18th century. The annotations about the rivers, native peoples, and mines of the interior provide limited information. The map was printed in Leiden by Pieter van der Aa (1659-1733), a Dutch publisher and bookseller who specialized in reissuing maps acquired from earlier mapmakers. Van der Aa’s major work was the elaborate Galerie Agréable du Monde (The pleasurable gallery of the world), a compendium of some 3,000 plates in 66 parts, bound in 27 ...
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National Library of Brazil
The Kingdom of France
This map of the Kingdom of France is attributed to Alexis-Hubert Jaillot and Guillaume Sanson, son of Nicolas Sanson, who is widely considered to have been the father of French cartography. Although dated 1724, in the monarchy of Louis XV, the map appears to be one of the last known reprints of Jaillot’s L’Atlas français (French atlas) of 1690, published more than two decades after the cartographer’s death. It depicts the provinces and major cities of France under the reign of Louis XIV, as well as the ...
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Library of Congress
Map of Turkey, Arabia and Persia
John Senex (circa 1678-1740) was an English surveyor, engraver, bookseller, and publisher of maps and atlases. He served as geographer to Queen Anne and was elected to the Royal Society in 1728. Among his many works was A New General Atlas: containing a geographical and historical account of all the empires, kingdoms, and other dominions of the world, published in 1721. This map of the Middle East is one of 34 maps in the atlas. Senex borrowed liberally from the great French mapmaker Guillaume de L’Isle, often simply translating ...
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Library of Congress
“Shipwrecked” by Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca, and the Description of the Journey Which he Made Through Florida with Panfilo de Narvaez
Alvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca (1490-1560) was second in command of an expedition led by Pánfilo de Narváez (1478-1528) that left Spain in June 1527 with five ships and 600 men with the mission of establishing a colony in “Florida.” The expedition suffered storms, desertions, disease, and other difficulties in the Caribbean. On November 5 and 6, 1528, 80 surviving members of the expedition were shipwrecked on or near Galveston Island, Texas. After living among the local Native Americans for six years, Cabeza de Vaca and three other survivors headed ...
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Library of Congress
New Map Showing the Spanish and Portuguese Explorations with Observations of the Most Ingenious Geographers of Spain and Portugal
This map, showing the southwestern part of the Iberian Peninsula, was published in Amsterdam by François Halma (1653-1722), a Dutch bookseller and publisher who started a business in Utrecht, later moved to Amsterdam, and finally settled in Leeuwarden. In addition to publishing maps, Halma produced one of the earliest Dutch-French dictionaries.
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National Library of Brazil
New Atlas of China, Chinese Tartary and Tibet
Jean Baptiste Bourguignon d’Anville (1697-1782) was one of the most important French geographers of the 18th century. This map of Guangdong Province in southern China is one of 42 maps in his Nouvel atlas de la Chine, de la Tartarie Chinoise et du Thibet (New atlas of China, Chinese Tartary, and Tibet), published in Holland in 1737 as a companion work to Father J.B. Du Halde’s Description géographique, historique, chronologique, politique, et physique de l'empire de la Chine (Geographic, historical, chronological, political, and physical description of ...
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Library of Congress
Kangxi Dictionary
This book was compiled by Zhang Yushu, Chen Tingjing, and other famous philologists and linguists from all over China in response to an edict from Emperor Shengzu in the 49th year of the Kangxi era. The work was completed in the 55th year of the Kangxi era. Through diplomats, missionaries, and the 1904 Saint Louis World Exposition, the Library of Congress acquired editions of the Kangxi Dictionary published in 1716, 1780, 1827, and 1878.
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Grand Ceremony Celebrating the Emperor’s Birthday, Premier Compilation
This work, in 120 juan and 40 volumes celebrating Emperor Kangxi’s 60th birthday, was compiled by landscape painter and official Wang Yuanqi (1642–1715) and others and published at the imperial Wuying Hall in the 56th year of the Kangxi reign (1717). It also includes memorials by high officials to the imperial court petitioning and seeking approval for the issuance of the work. The work took several years to complete, with a total of 39 officials participating in the project. Among them was Leng Mei, a famed artist of ...
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Library of Congress
Travels of Francois Coreal to the West Indies, Containing the Most Remarkable Things He has Seen on His Voyage from 1666 to 1697
This three-volume work by a Spanish author of uncertain identity, Francisco (François) Coreal, was published in Amsterdam in 1722. It purports to be the French translation of a first-hand account, in Spanish, of multiple voyages to Brazil and Spanish America undertaken by Coreal over a span of 30 years, from 1666-97. Coreal's supposed voyages cover about half of the three volumes. The rest of the work is comprised of a heterogeneous set of texts taken from the travelogues of Sir Walter Raleigh (1552-1618) and several of his contemporaries. Many ...
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Library of Congress
Pictorial Representation of the Illustrious City of Venice Dedicated to the Reign of the Most Serene Dominion of Venice
Lodovico Ughi’s 1729 map of Venice is regarded as a landmark in the cartographic history of the city. For centuries, Venetian mapmakers had been copying older maps without significantly altering the appearance of the city. Ughi’s map was the first to be based on accurate field surveys and real measurements. Little is known about Ughi, the cartographer. The publisher of the map, Giuseppe Baroni, was one of six Venetian printmakers and merchants who formed, in 1718, a guild of engravers that attempted to regulate the quality of copper ...
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Library of Congress
The Grand Theater of the War in Italy
Pierre Mortier (1661-1711) was a Dutch publisher of atlases, maps, and charts. The grandson of religious refugees from France who settled in Leiden about 1625, Mortier grew up in Amsterdam, which at the time was the center of the international book trade. As a young man, he spent several years in Paris, where he got to know French maps and publishers. Returning to Amsterdam about 1685, he established himself as a publisher of high quality maps, including reprints of works by Alexis-Hubert Jaillot, Nicolas Sanson, and the other great French ...
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Library of Congress
The Important Stars Among the Multitude of the Heavens
Timbuktu, founded around 1100 as a commercial center for trade across the Sahara Desert, was also an important seat of Islamic learning from the 14th century onward. The libraries of Timbuktu contain many important manuscripts, in different styles of Arabic scripts, which were written and copied by Timbuktu’s scribes and scholars. These works constitute the city’s most famous and long-lasting contribution to Islamic and world civilization. This early 18th-century text was written to train scholars in the field of astronomy, a science that Islamic tradition traces back to ...
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Mamma Haidara Commemorative Library
Explanations of Problems in Arithmetic with Examples
Timbuktu, founded around 1100 as a commercial center for trade across the Sahara Desert, was also an important seat of Islamic learning from the 14th century onward. The libraries of Timbuktu contain many important manuscripts, in different styles of Arabic scripts, which were written and copied by Timbuktu’s scribes and scholars. These works constitute the city’s most famous and long-lasting contribution to Islamic and world civilization. This commentary by the 18th-century scholar al-Rasmuki explains a work by the medieval mathematician al-Samlali. Using charts and examples of problems, the ...
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Mamma Haidara Commemorative Library
Curing Diseases and Defects Both Apparent and Hidden
Timbuktu, founded around 1100 as a commercial center for trade across the Sahara Desert, was also an important seat of Islamic learning from the 14th century onward. The libraries of Timbuktu contain many important manuscripts, in different styles of Arabic scripts, which were written and copied by Timbuktu’s scribes and scholars. These works constitute the city’s most famous and long-lasting contribution to Islamic and world civilization. This compilation of cures (date unknown) instructs the reader about methods of diagnosing and medicating the sick. The author explains the use ...
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Mamma Haidara Commemorative Library
On the Calculation of Numbers in the Science of Astronomy
Timbuktu, founded around 1100 as a commercial center for trade across the Sahara Desert, was also an important seat of Islamic learning from the 14th century onward. The libraries of Timbuktu contain many important manuscripts, in different styles of Arabic scripts, which were written and copied by Timbuktu’s scribes and scholars. These works constitute the city’s most famous and long-lasting contribution to Islamic and world civilization. This work (date unknown) explains mathematical calculations and their use in astronomy and astrology. The final portion of the manuscript is missing.
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Mamma Haidara Commemorative Library
Kingdom of Algarve
This 18th-century map, most likely a reprint from an early-19th century French atlas, shows the Kingdom of the Algarve. In 1249, King Alfonso III of Portugal completed the reconquest of southern Portugal from the Moors. Thereafter, Alfonso took to calling himself the King of Portugal and the Algarves. The Algarve, which corresponds to the present-day region of Faro, retained a semi-autonomous existence under Portuguese rule until 1910, when it was merged into the newly proclaimed Republic of Portugal. The Algarve was famous as the location from which, in Sagres, the ...
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Library of Congress
Map of the Gulf of Catarro
This 18th-century Spanish maritime map shows the Gulf of Kotor, a fjord-like body of water located on the eastern side of the Adriatic Sea. The map is part of the Library of Congress’s collection of Spanish navigation maps, acquired from Maggs Brothers, London. The map shows depths in soundings and is oriented with north at the lower right. The phrase “Del Ferro” in the upper left refers to Ferro Island, the southwestern-most of the Canary Islands, that was used in 18th-century maps as the prime meridian. Also shown is ...
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Library of Congress
Map of Barbary, the Nigrita, and Guinea
As late as the Renaissance, European knowledge of Africa was largely limited to the Mediterranean and coastal areas. It was also still heavily influenced by classical sources. Between 1570 and 1670, the Dutch, who dominated European mapmaking at the time, began translating reports from Portuguese sea captains, as well as earlier North African sources, to expand their knowledge of the continent. In the late 17th and early 18th centuries, the French Royal Academy of Sciences gave new impetus to the mapping of Africa. This 18th-century map by Guillaume de l ...
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Library of Congress
Apotheosis of Peter's Military Glory
“Apotheosis of Peter's Military Glory” exalts Tsar Peter the Great (1672–1725) as a wise ruler and military leader. The print shows Peter standing on a pedestal depicting battle scenes, surrounded by portraits of the 33 tsars and grand dukes who ruled Russia from the ninth century to the beginning of Peter’s reign in 1682. Labels beneath the portraits provide brief information about each ruler. Behind Peter stretches a chain of maps of the fortresses that he seized in battle. The work was commissioned by the Russian state ...
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Boris Yeltsin Presidential Library
Map of Orinoco River that Includes Visible Islands and Tributaries at the Delta of the River, 1732
This early-18th century map of the valley of the Orinoco River contains extensive information about the Indian nations bordering the river, Christian missions and other settlements, the extensive array of streams that flow into the Orinoco, and navigational hazards and islands. The map includes a keyed index and a detailed historical note on the exploration of the river from 1682 to 1732. The note records information about the martyrdom of several religious figures. As indicated in the note, much of the information for the map came from different religious sources ...
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Library of Congress
Map of Cape Verde
This distinctive French map of Cape Verde and the Island of Gorée, Senegal, probably dates from the first half of the 18th century. The Portuguese were the first European settlers in this region, having arrived around 1450. In the 16th century, French and English pirates and merchants asserted increasing influence in Senegal. In 1633, the French established the Senegal Company, which was based on the gum and slave trades. Most prominently featured on this map are structures on the Island of Gorée depicting the renowned "factory" or slave-trading center. The ...
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Library of Congress
Civil Alphabet with Moral Teachings
Civil Alphabet with Moral Teachings, published in 1710, is the first official Russian civil alphabet. Also known as the “ABC book of Peter the Great,” it was aimed at simplifying the Russian alphabet and was produced after many years of experiments conducted by Dutch and Russian experts under the guidance and with the direct participation of Tsar Peter the Great (reigned, 1682–1725). This copy of the alphabet is of particular interest, as it contains corrections to the composition and form of the letters, handwritten by the tsar. The back ...
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Boris Yeltsin Presidential Library
Spirit of the Laws
Published in 1748, condemned by the Catholic Church in 1751, Montesquieu's masterpiece, De l'Esprit des lois (Spirit of the laws) marked a turning point in the European Age of Enlightenment. It announced the new critical understanding of acquired knowledge that was also reflected in Buffon's Histoire naturelle (Natural history) and Diderot and d'Alembert's Encyclopédie (Encyclopedia). The depth of the analysis and the skill of presentation resulted in Montesquieu’s work having considerable influence on political thought in the 18th and 19th centuries. It is divided ...
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National Library of France
Journal of the Campaign of the Islands of America Done by Monsieur D.: The Storming and Possession of the Island Saint Christophe with an Exact Description of the More Curious Animals and Trees and Plants of America
This work of 1709 is a first-hand description of the island of Saint Kitts and its flora, fauna, people, and economy during the colonial period. The book is by a French naval officer, Gautier du Tronchoy, who in late 1698 and early 1699 took part in a mission to Saint Christophe, as the French called the island. France and Britain vied for control of Saint Kitts for much of the 17th and 18th centuries. In 1783, the island became a British colony. In 1983, Saint Kitts became independent, as part ...
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Library of Congress
The Voyage of the Sieur Le Maire, to the Canary Islands, Cape-Verde, Senegal, and Gambia
This 1745 book is an English translation of a work by Jacques-Joseph Le Maire that was first published in 1695 and recounted a voyage to West Africa and the Atlantic islands off the coast of Africa. Le Maire, a physician in the service of the Compagnie d'Afrique, describes the inhabitants, customs, and places that he visited. Le Maire’s work remains an important source for the study of 17th-century West Africa, interactions between Africans and Europeans, and aspects of the transatlantic slave trade.
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Library of Congress
Travels into the Inland Parts of Africa: Containing a Description of the Several Nations for the Space of Six Hundred Miles up the River Gambia
Francis Moore was a clerk, and later a factor, for the Royal African Company. Moore lived on the Gambia River from November 1730 to May 1735, and represented the commercial interests of the company. This work consists of the personal journal that Moore kept at the time, which remains an important source of information about pre-colonial Gambia. Moore’s journal includes discussions about natural history, descriptions of the different ethnic groups living along the river, and observations on everyday and economic life. Also included are accounts of the slave trade ...
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Library of Congress
A Plan of English Harbour
This well-executed, colored British map is of English Harbour, Antigua, one of the principal port facilities for British activities in the Caribbean in the18th century. The map shows the coastline, coastal features, extensive soundings, a navigational hazard, fortifications, shipyards, cultivated fields and vegetation, and an ornate wind rose. It also includes a keyed legend. The map indicates that the primary purpose of the port was as a naval depot and dry dock. The map is from the Howe Collection at the Library of Congress, which was acquired in 1905 from ...
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Luxembourg, a Famous Fortress in the Duchy of the Same Name in the Netherlands
The city of Luxembourg, capital of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, is strategically located on a plateau above two gorges formed by the Alzette and Petrusse rivers. Already in the 4th century, it was the site of a Roman fort. In 963, Siegfried, Count of Ardennes and founder of the state of Luxembourg, built a castle on the same location. The walled town grew up around the castle, and the fortifications were strengthened over the course of centuries. This map, by Mattheus Seuter (1678-1756), shows both the fortifications and, in ...
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Library of Congress
Map of Northeastern Coast of Venezuela Including Trinidad and Tobago Islands
This clear and precise 18th-century manuscript map of the northeast coast of Venezuela and Trinidad and Tobago includes coastlines, coastal features, navigational hazards, soundings, settlements, streams and rivers (including the Orinoco River), and an ornate wind rose. The extensive note in the lower right hand corner of the map provides information about means of accessing timber in Venezuela. At the time the map was made, Venezuela was part of the Spanish Empire. The map is part of the Library of Congress’s collection from the Real Escuela de Navegación, Cadiz ...
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Library of Congress
A Relation of the Late Intended Settlement of the Islands of St. Lucia and St. Vincent, in America: in Right of the Duke of Montagu, and Under His Grace's Direction and Orders, in the Year 1722
Britain and France vied for control of the island of Saint Lucia throughout the 17th and 18th centuries. In 1722, the British government of King George I granted the island, along with the island of Saint Vincent, to the Duke of Montagu. The duke appointed Nathaniel Uring, a merchant sea captain and adventurer, as deputy-governor of his new lands and sent Uring with a large flotilla to colonize the island. After a stop in Barbados, Uring arrived on Saint Lucia in December 1722, where he established a settlement at Petit ...
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Library of Congress
Map of the Fortress of Cobras Island
This map shows the fort on the Island of Cobras, located in the harbor off the coast of Rio de Janeiro. The island was considered an important line of defense for the city of Rio de Janeiro and the approach to the colonial capital. The first fort was erected on the island in the 1620s, when Portugal’s Brazilian holdings were under threat from the Dutch as well as from the French and the English. Over the next century, the fort was rebuilt and expanded. Eventually, it included a house ...
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National Library of Brazil
Primitive Map of the Upper Paraguay River and Its Tributaries Cuiaba, Porrudos and São Lourenco
This hand-drawn map from around 1720 shows the Upper Paraguay River and its tributaries, the Cuiaba, Porrudos, and São Lourenco rivers. The basin of the Upper Paraguay River is located in the present-day Brazilian states of Mato Grosso and Mato Grosso do Sul, and is the largest floodplain area in the world. This map subsequently played a role in establishing that Portugal occupied these inland territories and therefore could claim legal ownership under the terms of the 1750 Treaty of Madrid. The map was drawn with ferrogálica, an ink that ...
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National Library of Brazil
Village and Square of Santos
This drawing shows the village of Santos in the Brazilian state of São Paulo. The village was established in 1546 and quickly became an export site for coffee. The drawing is done with Nanquim ink, a type of ink developed in China and used for colloidal drawings and watercolors. It involves suspending carbon particles in water and stabilizing it with some type of glue.
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National Library of Brazil
Design of the City of São Paulo
This drawing shows the Brazilian city of São Paulo. Founded in 1554 by Jesuit missionaries as a base for their work with the Guaraní Indians, the city first grew as a result of the coffee trade and later due to industrialization. The drawing is done with Nanquim ink, a type of ink developed in China and used for colloidal drawings and watercolors. It involves suspending carbon particles in water and stabilizing it with some type of glue.
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National Library of Brazil
Town of Santos
This drawing shows the village of Santos in southern Brazil. The drawing is done with Nanquim ink, a type of ink developed in China and used for colloidal drawings and watercolors. It involves suspending carbon particles in water and stabilizing it with some type of glue.
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National Library of Brazil
Map of the District of Bahia de Todos os Santos and Its Continuation to the West
This early-18th century manuscript map shows the interior of the Brazilian state of Bahia, at the time still largely uncharted. The Portuguese began to explore this region as early as 1501, and soon developed it into a center for growing and processing sugar. The sugar was exported from several of Bahia's coastal cities, the most important of which was Salvador. Salvador was the first capital of Brazil, until 1763, when Rio de Janeiro became the capital.
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National Library of Brazil
Demonstration of the Tributaries of the São Francisco River, Minas Gerais
This hand-colored manuscript map, made by an unknown cartographer sometime in the early 18th century, shows the tributaries of the São Francisco River in Brazil’s Minas Gerais state. The São Francisco River system, which includes 168 tributaries, is the fourth-largest river system in South America. In the early 18th century, the Portuguese sent numerous expeditions up the São Francisco and its tributaries in search of gold, silver, and diamonds.
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National Library of Brazil
Map of Bahia
This early-18th century manuscript map by an unknown cartographer shows the interior of the Brazilian state of Bahia, still largely uncharted at that time. The Portuguese began to explore this region as early as 1501, and soon developed it into a center for growing and processing sugar. The sugar was exported from several of Bahia's coastal cities, the most important of which was Salvador.
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National Library of Brazil