Topographia Galliae (Topography of Gaul)

Topographia Galliae (Topography of Gaul)
Originally uploaded by Smithsonian Libraries.

Martin Zeiller (1589-1661)
Topographia Galliae (Topography of Gaul)
Frankfort: Caspar Merian, 1655-61. 4 vols.

Zeiller, an Austrian cartographer, dedicated this four-volume survey of the provinces and towns of France to its king, Louis XIV. (It was part of an extensive geographic survey of many European countries.) The volume containing his 300 illustrations is one of the period's finest examples of hand-colored engraving. The finely rendered pictures preserve many details of buildings, roadways, and cities that no longer exist or have been significantly altered. Topographia is an excellent example of the art of the book in 17th-century France and one of the most comprehensive contemporary guides to its cities and structures.

Celestial map showing various constellations

Celestial map showing various constellations
Originally uploaded by Smithsonian Libraries.

This celestial map, from Elijah H. (Elijah Hinsdale) Burritt's
Atlas designed to illustrate the geography of the heavens (published in 1835) is both a fanciful and accurate depiction of the classical constellations.

View more "star atlases" on the Smithsonian Libraries' Galaxy of Images

Charles Darwin

Charles Darwin
Originally uploaded by Smithsonian Libraries.

This portrait of Charles Darwin is from the online collection, "Scientific Identity: Portraits from the Dibner Library of the History of Science and Technology" (view collection)

The scientific portrait collection in the Dibner Library was assembled by Bern Dibner. The images formed a fine research complement to the thousands of scientific books and manuscripts in the library he founded, the Burndy Library. Bern Dibner obtained most of the portraits during the 1940s from print dealers in Boston, London, and Paris. By 1950 he had about two thousand images and arranged them into ten scientific subdivisions: Botany, Chemistry, Electricity, Geology, Mathematics, Medicine, Philosophy, Physics, Technology, and Zoology.

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