1500s Gallery

16th century world map

World map, published around 1565 in Venice, Italy, by Italian mapmaker Ferando Bertelli. The title of the map: Universale Descrittione di Tutta la Terra Conosciuta Fin Qui (universal description to the end of the known Earth). In the past few hundred years, the Americas (left) and the sea passage to India around Africa, and the islands of South-East Asia, had all been discovered, but these regions remained poorly mapped. This map shows a vast and unknown continent to the south, and Australia has not yet been discovered. Illustrations of ships and strange sea creatures are seen on the oceans, and strange animals are seen on the unknown lands. The winds are represented at upper right and left

© LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, GEOGRAPHY AND MAP DIVISION/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY

Europe, 16th century nautical map

Nautical map of Europe, 1544 copy of Agnese Atlas. Several copies of this atlas were produced between 1536 and 1564, in Venice, by the Italian mapmaker Battista Agnese. The red lines crossing the map (thumb lines) centre on the compass rose at centre of the map, and are used to show distances between points on the map. As a nautical map, only details of the Mediterranean and Western European coasts are shown. The north and Baltic Sea coasts are not labelled. The Baltic coasts and British Isles are not mapped accurately. This edition of the atlas was dedicated to Hieronymus Ruffault, Abbot of St Vaast, Arras, France. It eventually reached the US Library of Congress in 1943

© LIBRARY OF CONGRESS/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY

Johannes Kepler, German astronomer

Johannes Kepler (1571-1630), German astronomer, holding a divider used to plot distances. Kepler devised three fundamental laws of planetary motion. These laws were based on detailed observations of the planets made by himself and the Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe. Kepler's first law states that the planets orbit the Sun in elliptical paths, with the Sun at one focus of the ellipse. The second law states that the closer a planet comes to the Sun, the faster it moves. Kepler's third law states that the ratio of the cube of a planet's mean distance from the Sun to the square of its orbital period is a constant. Newton used these ideas to formulate his theory of gravity

© GARY BROWN/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY