When the world took shape

“Approaches to distant lands” exhibition at the Austrian National Library: when the world took shape
Visitors can find out about the mapping of the world in the 17th century – from Africa and Asia to America – until the beginning of November in the State Hall of the Austrian National Library

Colourful unknown world

The world as it appears in the exhibition showcases is fabulous and colourful: animals with human faces, men without heads and with eyes in their shoulders, natives fighting monsters and sketches of legendary towns and regions: the maps and representations of foreign countries and peoples in the 17th century were a mixture of fantasy and reality.




This is hardly surprising given the fact that at the start of the 17th century only half of the land surface of the earth was known. Seafarers had navigated the coasts, and the first colonial settlements had been established, but relatively little was known of the cultures inland. This terra incognita offered writers and the makers of atlases and maps plenty of scope for speculation. Rather than leave the unknown areas blank – as was customary in the 18th century – they were decorated with imaginative fantasies. Many of the maps and drawings had elaborate baroque ornaments in keeping with popular tastes at the time. And curiosity ran high: in the 17th century very few people could leave the continent, and the reports and drawings of foreign worlds provided a perfect opportunity for flights of fancy.




Much of the content of the atlases of the time was already out of date. Not everything that was revealed on voyages of discovery was for public consumption: by withholding the information, the rulers could consolidate their power. Other representations were designed to justify oppression and missionary zeal. The popular image of savages is a good example: when the Portuguese arrived in Africa in the 15th century, they found highly advanced cultures, which they destroyed “in order to achieve a trade monopoly on sought-after luxury goods from Asia,” says Jan Mokre, director of the map collection and globe museum.

Valuable atlases

Map makers in the 17th century drew on different sources. They used cosmographic charts, travel and expedition reports, descriptions and navigation instructions. Publishers in Amsterdam were the leading producers of atlases at the time. The most impressive and important 17th century atlas is Atlas Maior from the Blaeu publishing company, a copy of which is owned by the Austrian National Library. Although it is not itself on display, it has been used to help structure the exhibition. The 50-volume Blaeu Van der Hen atlas is a magnificent example of its type. It was compiled by a wealthy Dutch patrician between 1662 and 1678 and was included in 2003 in the UNESCO Memory of the World Register.

The atlases on show in the exhibition are part of the Library’s map collection, which contains 1.5 million items, making it the most important cartographical collection in the world.