A photo essay. To view all the images, check out the email edition.
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To find 13th-century diagrams of Jerusalem, a map of unconquered Tenochtitlan, 16th-century Venetian and Arabic atlases and some of the first topographical renderings of the moon, navigate your way to the mezzanine level of the Beinecke Library.
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To find the portolans—“large, colorful charts… used by sailors to navigate from port to port”—linger at ground level. Head to the long cases, where the centuries-old charts are laid flat and brimming with fine details, including the ones captured here using a macroscopic lens.
And be sure to do it soon. At 5 p.m. Sunday, the exhibition that unburied these treasures, The World in Maps, 1400-1600, reaches the edge of its map.
Written and photographed by Dan Mims.