I have decided on a new challenge: To do something new in London every day for 30 days. Also, I want it to be free. In a way, I started this by mistake and have decided to roll with it.
Day one: Magnificent Maps at British Library
I work very close to the British Library so actually managed to squeeze this in on my lunch-break. However, I was so absorbed by some of the maps, that I didn't actually get to see the full exhibition in my lunch hour. It's well-worth returning to on another lunch break to see the other half.
Some of the guys in my office came along, and we decided it would be funny to buy a map in the shop, put Where's Waldo? on one of the maps and hang it in the exhibition to see if anyone notices.
Jokes aside, maps are utterly captivating. In those early days of map-making there was no satellite or GPS systems, and maps were not objective. Most maps were made to make a comment about a country's wealth or status, or to boast of a king's reign, or ownership of space. Artists were commissioned by land-owners to reflect their wealth in these creations, cartographers were still experimenting with ways to represent the form of the world, kings used maps to intimidate neighbours.
If you are in London, try to get down to see this exhibition before it closes on 19 September.
Open seven days a week : admission free
Highlights:
- A HUGE atlas apparently the largest ever made, and it was published in 1660 (I think it's for giants)
- The world's biggest woodcut, an incredibly detailed map of Venice. I read it was by Jacopo de Barbara's and was made in 1500. "Sprawlingly wonderful, it's still the largest woodcut map ever created, so large in fact, as one of the helpful curators informs me, that they needed to construct a new paper mill in order to print it."
- Henry VIII's map of Italy, where Venice is out of proportion and huge because it was a city of importance.
- A gilded parchment of 1550 where Australia (my homeland) continues large underneath Europe, and the red sea is actually red.
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