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History of Science

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Detail from a printed book shows text in Spanish including "Ensayo" at the top of the page.

Seminario del Nuevo Reyno de Granada

Francisco Jose de Caldas
1808
Detail of a printed book shows a full-page map and text at the of the page reading "America."

Historia Mundi: or Mercator’s Atlas...

Gerhard Mercator
1635
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 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
Printed text shows a large, coiled snake with some Latin text visible.

Historia naturæ

Joannes Eusebius Nieremberg
1635
Detail of an engraved map shows the direction of flow of the "Golfe de Floride." Other text in French labels nearby landmarks such as "Isles de Bahama.'

The Gulf Stream flowing northwards…

Benjamin Franklin
1778
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 map, engraved in copper, shows Latin text.

Claudii Ptolemaei Cosmographaie [sic]

Ptolemy
1477

Related

agnese closeup

Air America

April - June, 2016
map of the world with continents upside down

Constellations: Reimagining Celestial Histories in the Early Americas

Winter 2020-2021
map of the world with continents upside down
Exhibition opening

Constellations exhibition launch and guided tour with Historian of Science Simon Schaffer

illustration of sixteenth-century technological developments

Drugs from the Colonies: The New American Medicine Chest

Fall - Winter 2011
Europeans and Africans at the shore

Voyage to the Islands: Hans Sloane, Slavery, and Scientific Travel in the Caribbean

Spring - Summer 2012
agave or maguey

Atlantic Materia Medica

Winter - Spring 2007
men work inside a mine

Subterranean Worlds: Under the Earth in the Early Americas

Spring - Summer 2015
a Mohawk man teaches children in a schoolhouse

Controlling Colonial Impressions

May-October 2019

See Also

17th Century

Urbanism