Period

16th Century

Featured Items

Detail of a printed book shows an illustration of a woman with long hair, elaborate drawings on her body, and holding a spear.

A briefe and true report of the new found land of Virginia.

Thomas Harriot
1590
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 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 from a printed texts shows a full-page illustration of Fort Caroline. Details include topography, trees, and text in French.

Plan of Fort Caroline

1565
Detail of a printed book shows a colored illustrated dragons on a circular diagram with text in Latin.

Astronomicum cæsareum

Peter Apian
1540
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 Mundus Novus' title page which depicts two monkeys sitting by a tree, framed by plants and text in Latin.

Mundus novus

Amerigo Vespucci
1503
Detail of a hand colored manuscript map shows flags and place names along a coastal region.

[Early representation of Newfoundland, Lower California, the Amazon, and the Ladrones]

António Pereira
circa 1546

Related

Fellow's Talk

Sir Walter Ralegh’s Discoverie of Guiana: Courtesy and Piracy in the Poetics of translatio imperii studiique

Fellow's Talk

Encompassing the Globe: The Iberian Atlantic in the Age of Don Quijote

Detail from: Figure des Brisilians. [Rouen, 1551]. Original at the John Carter Brown Library.
Fellow's Talk

Un certain simulacre de la verité: Performances and Performative Readings in the Figure des Brisilians (1551)

Image from: Mr. Garrick delivering his Ode, London. [John Lodge 1770]. Original at the John Carter Brown Library.
Lecture

If, And or But: What we can learn from ten words in Shakespeare

Image from: Mr. Garrick delivering his Ode, London. [John Lodge 1770]. Original at the John Carter Brown Library.
Lecture

Ten Things I Learned From Shakespeare

Image from: Inca or Indians of Peru. [N. Guérard le fils, 1717]. Original image at the John Carter Brown Library.
Fellow's Talk

Daughters of the Inca Conquest: Indigenous Noble Women in Colonial Peru

Image from: Tovar, Juan de. [Tovar Codex]. [Mexico City, between 1582 and 1587]. Original at the John Carter Brown Library.
Fellow's Talk

The Embodiment of the Word: European Book Culture and New World Manuscripts, 1540-1600

Image from: Tovar Codex-El modo de baylar de los Mexicanos. 17a y última del primer tratado. [Juan de Tovar 1585]. Original at the John Carter Brown Library.
Workshop

Visual Thinking in the Archive: Mesoamerican Codices at the JCB

See Also

Pilot

American Revolutions