Period

18th Century

Featured Items

Detail of calf-bound book shows worn spine, embossed detail, and stamped title.

Secrete resolutien van de edele groot mog...

Johan de Witt
1717
Detail of a hand colored manuscript map shows villages labeled in Spanish such as "Pueblo de S. Pablo" and "Pueblo de Huitziltzinco." Churches, trees, and bodies of water are also included in the map.

El presente mapa demuestra la cituacion, plano, y repartimiento, que en la actualidad tienen los arroyos, que bajan de Sierra Nevada…

Felipe de Zúñiga y Ontiveros
1770
Detail of a hand colored printed map shows text in French reading "Terre-Neuve," latitude and longitude lines, and labels over other geographical areas.

Carte reduite des bancs et de l'Ile de Terre-Neuve avec les cotes du Golf de St. Laurent et de l'Acadie

[Depot de la Marine]
1784
Detail of a printed book shows a full-page colored illustration of a plant with insects on it. On the opposite page, text in Latin is visible.

Dissertatio de generatione et metamorphosibus insectorum Surinamensium

Maria Sibylla Merian
1719
Detail of a hand colored, engraved print of Grenada shows a scene of naval warfare, as seen by smoke engulfing one ship.

Prise de l'isle de la Grenade...

Roger fils
1782
Two books bound in vellum with manuscript writing on them are pictured on top of each other.

L'Americana Ramminga

Pietro Chiari
1764
Detail of a printed map shows Detroit with labels reading "Grande Saline," "Mosquitto Bay," and so on.

Pilote americain septentrional

Georges-Louis Le Rouge
1778-1789
Detail of an engraved city plan of Queretaro shows numbered blocks in the city layout.

Ordenanza que para la division de la m. noble y leal ciudad de Santiago de Queretaro en cuarteles menores, creacion de alcaldes de ellos, y reglas para su gobierno.

1796

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[Plan of the Seige of Savannah, 1779]
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Mount Vernon symposium: Mapping the American Revolution

Bertie Mandelblatt, December 15, 2022
A detail from the "Carte Physique de la Grande Mer"
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Philippe Buache, “Carte Physique de la Grande Mer ci-devant nommée Mer du Sud ou Pacifique…” from Cartes et tables de la géographie physique ou naturelle: présentées au roi le 15 mai 1757, Paris: 1770

August 30, 2021
Frontispiece from Museum Wormianum. Seu, Historia rerum rariorum, 1655.

Natural History Collecting in Late Colonial New Spain: Highlights from the JCB Collection

Engraving showing whale fishery
Fellow's Talk

Baleação e Escravidão: Conexões Atlânticas entre New England, África e Brasil. Séculos XVIII e XIX (in Portuguese)

Frontispiece of 'Mis Mac Rea', by Hillard-D'Auberteuil
Fellow's Talk

“Indian Castles” and “Barbarous Frenchmen”: the Shadow of New France in the American Revolution

The cartouche of the map “Algemeene Kaart van de Colonie of Provintie van Suriname,” by Alexander de Lavaux
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Alexander de Lavaux, “Algemeene Kaart van de Colonie of Provintie van Suriname,” after 1758

July 28, 2021
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

An eighteenth-century hand colored, engraved image of a ship unloading cargo and men from a boat, surrounded by other ships and backgrounded by a fortification, dwellings, churches, and a harbor.
Fellow's Talk

"To cease and yield the continual pretensions of the French:" The Spanish Establishment of Monte Cristi as a Free Port, 1750-1763

See Also

History of the Book

French