Period

16th Century

Featured Items

Printed text shows a circular diagram below text in Latin.

Breves in sphaeram meditatiunculae

Bartholomaeus Mercator
1563
Detail of a fold-out printed map shows town square in the center, surrounding buildings, and ships at sea at the outer perimeter.

Praeclara Ferdina[n]di.

Hernán Cortés
1524
Detail of a printed book shows full-page illustrations of plants. Text in Latin also visible.

Aromatum, et simplicium aliquot medicamentorum apud Indos

Garcia de Orta
1567
Detail of a colored manuscript map shows the Black Sea with labels. Decorative border includes red, blue, and green ink and gilded details.

Battista Agnese atlas

Battista Agnese
1543-1545
Detail of a colored manuscript atlas shows a coastal region and labels in Latin. Other details include drawings of castles and mountains.

[Portolan atlas] / Vesconte de Maiolo ciuis Janue conposuy

Vesconte Maggiolo
1511
Detail of a frontispiece shows four animals grouped between two pillars. In the background, castles sit on either side of a harbor where ships wait. Text in Latin.

Biblia Sacra Hebraice, Chaldaice, Graece, & Latine Philippi II

1573
Detail of brown book binding shows the embossed details.

La istoria de las Indias. y Conquista de Mexico

López de Gómara
1552
Detail of a printed books shows text in Latin and decorative typography.

De Aequinoctiorum Solsticiorumque Inventione

Albert Pigghe
1520

Related

An image of the map '“Delineatio Omnium Orarum Totius Australis Partis Americae'
Map of the Month

Jan van Linschoten, “Delineatio Omnium Orarum Totius Australis Partis Americae …” in Itinerario, voyage ofte schipvaert…, Amsterdam: Cornelius Claesz, 1596

November 22
Engraving of two Nahua men speaking to one another. An angel hovers behind one of the men, preventing him from producing idolatrous speech, while the other has a snakes stemming from his mouth, which is representative of such language.
Fellow's Talk

"Brute animals" and "rational creatures": Defining humanity in the Indigenous-language vocabularies and pedagogies of New Spain

Image of an artificial flower clock, with two hands emerging from clouds on either side holding a numbered circle, and a thorn stemming from the flower's circle pointing at the time.
Fellow's Talk

Earthquakes and Timekeeping Practices in New England, 1600-1800

Detail from the Tovar Codex, showing a bearded Spanish man atop the symbol for house (calli), while holding a book that points to the letters of the Roman alphabet.
Fellow's Talk

Translating Late Medieval Classics into Nahuatl: The Imitatio Christi and How to Think About Latin-Nahuatl translation

Simple, printed map of the island of Sicily, showing Mount Etna, Palermo, Messina, Catania, and other cities, which have been labeled by the author.
Fellow's Talk

Comparative Colonialisms? Palermo and the Americas at the JCB

Three sixteenth-century maps. On the left is a map of the western coast of South America including Peru, on the top right a map of the southern part of North America from the Carolinas to the Mexican coast and on the bottom right a map of the northeastern part of Mexico.
Fellow's Talk

From South to North America: A New Perspective on Floridian Studies

A map showing the strait of Magellan
Fellow's Talk

The Strait of Magellan and the Construction of a Global habitability. Geopolitics and cosmography in the 16th century [in Spanish]

Image of Peruvian Print Shop
Lecture

Historia del libro en lenguas originarias de América

See Also

Indigenous Languages

Massachuset