Maps
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In this section we gather together information for the collector. We offer advice on building and housing your maps and books, provide biographies of mapmakers, and a glossary of bookselling terms, and we draw together some common themes that span our collections, and tell stories of the histories of exploration and cartography.
Featured items
Sir Gregor MacGregor, the Cazique of Poyais
In 1820, self-proclaimed Scottish nobleman Gregor MacGregor launched one of the most audacious and elaborate frauds of all time, tricking thousands of Brits into investing in “Poyais”, a territory in Central America which turned out to be entirely fictional.
The latest news
Inside the secretive world of the art-fair vetting committee
3 September 2021
Before a fair opens, experts check that every work for sale is exactly what the gallerists say it is
How to
A guide to your collection
Are you new to collecting maps? Would you like guidance on how to handle the books and maps in your collection?
From the glossary
Impression
The quality of the ink on a map or print or all the copies of a book printed during one press run. During the handpress period, when type was reset each time a press was used, this term was synonymous with edition.
French: Tirage
Mapmaker biographies
APIANUS, Petrus
Petrus Apianus (1495–1552) was born in Saxony as Peter Bienewitz. He studied at the University of Leipzig from 1516 to 1519, where he took a Latinised version of his German name, Petrus Apianus. In 1519 he moved to Vienna, where he was part of the second Vienna school of cartography, including Georgius Tannstetter and Johannes Cuspinianus. He then moved again to Landshut, where he produced the ‘Cosmographicus liber’ in 1524, an extremely popular work on astronomy and navigation which underwent thirty reprints. Based on Ptolemy, it contains paper instruments called volvelles, which Apianus would use so effectively in his work that they are sometimes known as Apian wheels.