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Collecting History of the JCB Library

Featured Items

Detail of a printed page shows text in Latin.

Christoforo Columbus, de insulis inventis, 1493

1493
Detail of a printed book shows title page with English text "The English Pilot. The Fourth Book describing the West India Navigation, from Hudson's Bay to the River Amazones" in red ink.

The English pilot, Book 4

William Fisher; John Thornton
1745
Detail from a printed book shows text in Spanish reading "Los aguacates es uno fruta en las Indias muy preciada, y medicinal."

Secretos de chirurgia

Pedro Arias de Benavides
1567
Detail of a map shows text in Latin.

Americae et Proximar Regionum Orae Descriptio

Giovanni Battista Mazza
1589
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 printed text shows an astronomical circular diagram and text in English.

An account of the observation of Venus upon the sun...

Benjamin West
1769
Detail of a woodcut, hand-colored map depicting North and South America. Visible details include Cuba, written as "CVBA", a compass rose, and text in Italian.

La carta uniuersale della terra firma & isole delle Indie occidẽtali…

1534
Detail from a colored manuscript map shows the world labeled with text in Latin.

De geometriae principiis ad sphaerae astronomicae noticiam neces sariis. caput primum…

Glareanus
1513

Related

colored plan of the city of Antwerp, Belgium

Melchor Pérez de Soto: A Book Collector Faces the Inquisition

Summer - Fall 2011
printed text in Hebrew

Jews and the Americas: 165 Years of Collecting at the JCB

Fall 2010 - Winter 2011
political cartoon depicting a funeral procession

Pamphlet Wars: Arguments on Paper from the Age of Revolutions

Fall 2015 - Winter 2016
detail of a map

How deep are the JCB's connections to Mexico?

February 15, 2019
detail of a page from a Mexican incunable book printed between 1539 to 1600
In House

64 Mexican incunables and counting

May 5, 2018

Ptolemy's Exquisite Geographia

February 6, 2018

See Also

Maritime History

History of the Book