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Items in Explorations

  • Detail of Hunt-Lenox globe, crafted of copper ca. 1508

    Explorations Introduction

  • lavishly illustrated manuscript copy of Ptolemy's Geographia; a cross-section of the globe is shown, handpainted in bright various shades of blue. Floating heads appear on the edges, blowing wind towards the map

    Ptolemy’s Geographia

  • celestial atlas page, with full page engraved plates in the Baroque style; black and white illustration with very ornate detailing of the world

    Harmonia Macrocosmica

  • A newspaper article with an illustration of an elaborate machine in the center of the page surrounded by the article text

    The Great Aerial Navigator, Atmospheric Machine!

  • Small bronze globe encircled by a ring that attaches it to a circular base

    The Hunt-Lenox Globe

  • Painted astrological signs (Centaur and Goat) against handwritten text

    Gaius Julius Hyginus’s De astronomia

  • Ancient cookery manuscript; double page spread with hard-to-read script

    Ancient cookery manuscript

  • A yellow and white rendering of Saturn, against a black background

    Saturn, from the series The Trouvelot Astronomical Drawings

  • Double page spread of vibrant green botanical illustrations next to printed text

    Gart der Gesundheit

  • Illustrations of black, gray, and green drawn on fibrous paper. The left page features a man, woman, and small animal, and the right another animal and writing in the Nahuatl language

    Council House of Santa Maria Toluca

  • vibrant and pristine layered calendar pages - one features a dragon

    Peter Apian’s Astronomicum Caesareum

  • Illustrated birds in green, yellow, and orange, perched on tree branches

    The Birds of America by John James Audubon

  • Black-and-white transparency showing a close-up of a portion of the moons cratered surface, its horizon curving in the upper right corner of the image

    Transparency of the moon

    Not currently on view

  • A title page’s woodcut illustration depicting a confrontation. An attending friar has offered a Catholic breviary to Atahualpa, who hurls the religious book to the ground in either confusion or defiance.

    La conquista del Perú

    Not currently on view

  • Title page of the First edition of Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species; on the left is a simple genealogical tree

    First edition of Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species

    Not currently on view

  • Map of Tenochtitlán published with a letter from Hernán Cortés; landscape page with very intricate black penned map

    Map of Tenochtitlán published with a letter from Hernán Cortés

    Not currently on view

  • 20 thumbnails of a horse galloping; sequentially showing how a horse moves

    Racking (pacing); saddle; brown horse, Pronto from Eadweard James Muybridge’s Animal Locomotion

    Not currently on view

  • Book opened to title page, at right; the top half of the left-hand page is covered in notes handwritten in ink

    Lima justificada: en el suceso del 25 de julio.

    Not currently on view

  • Sheet of paper with closely printed lines of Gothic script

    Letter from Christopher Columbus to Luis de Santángel

    Not currently on view

  • A skeleton stands, with one leg crossed over the other; it leans against a counter with a hand on another skull

    Thomas Geminus’s Compendiosa

    Not currently on view

  • Black-and-white photograph showing the bottom of a canyon near a river

    Photograph of the Colorado River by William H. Bell

    Not currently on view

  • Intricate printed type text, with various shapes shown next to it

    Euclid’s Elementa Geometriae

    Not currently on view

  • Book illustration titled “Chemistry of Combustion and Illumination; Structure of Flame,” with a large outline of a flame and candle in black and red. The flame is filled with small black squares and surrounded on the outside with squares of black and shades of red, with each color keyed to represent a specific chemical component

    Chemical Atlas

    Not currently on view

  • Detail of Hunt-Lenox globe, crafted of copper ca. 1508

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