St John's College News
Mappae Mundi
Mappae MundiThe map on the left is from a Victorian copy of a medieval world map that was made around the year 1300. It is called the Hereford Mappa Mundi because the medieval original is in Hereford Cathedral. Mappa Mundi (plural: Mappae Mundi) comes from the Latin words mappa meaning towel, and mundus meaning world. Maps like the one in Hereford were originally painted on cloth, and later drawn onto…read moreThe Unknown Southern Continent
The Unknown Southern ContinentThe southern continents of Australia and Antarctica were still unknown to Europeans long after parts of all the other continents had been explored. Ptolemy, a geographer in ancient times, had suggested that there was one huge continent in the south of the world. 1500 years later mapmakers were still putting this imaginary super-continent on their maps. They labelled it, in Latin, Terra…read moreThe Northwest Passage
The Northwest PassageBy the late sixteenth century, Spain and Portugal controlled the two best routes from Europe to the riches of Asia. Other European countries hoped to find another way from the Atlantic to the Pacific by sailing through the Arctic, north of America. British explorers Martin Frobisher (in the 1570s), John Davis (in the 1580s) and Henry Hudson (in 1610) all looked for this Northwest Passage, but…read moreThe Northeast Passage
The Northeast PassageThe picture above is from a book about a 1773 English expedition to Spitsbergen. It shows the freezing landscape that greeted explorers who travelled into the Arctic. Click on the images on this page to see more.The Northeast Passage is the route from Europe to the Pacific through the arctic waters north of Russia. Europeans started looking for the Northeast Passage in the mid-1500s because…read moreAntarctica
AntarcticaEighteenth century map-makers such as Guillaume de L’Isle began to put only information that could be scientifically proven on their maps. De L’Isle’s map of the South Pole (above) shows a blank space waiting to be explored. Click on the map to see more. This map shows how little was known about the Antarctic even by the early twentieth century. It is from The Heart of the Antarctic: being…read moreMapping Africa
Mapping AfricaBefore 1500 - Africa is outlined Africa’s outline had been mapped by the beginning of the sixteenth century. This was thanks to the efforts of Portuguese explorers, Bartolomeu Dias and Vasco da Gama. 1500s and 1600s - Africa is a land of myth Europeans still did not know much about what was in the middle of Africa. So sixteenth and seventeenth-century map-makers, like Sebastian Münster filled…read moreAmerigo Vespucci
Amerigo VespucciAmerigo Vespucci is the only person in history to have two entire continents named after him - North America and South America. Vespucci made several expeditions to the New World, in Christopher Columbus’ footsteps. He wrote a letter about his voyages. It was published under the title of ‘The New World’ and many people read it. It gave Europeans an idea of the shape of the continent of South…read moreAbel Tasman
Abel TasmanAbel Janszoon Tasman was a sea captain for the Dutch East India Company, a trading company that owned land in the East Indies (modern day Indonesia). The two pictures below are from a book published in 1611 that celebrates Dutch trading activities. Click on the bird to see the animals that Dutch traders saw in Indonesia. Click on the boat to see ships in the Dutch fleet. In 1642, the…read moreHenry Stanley
Henry StanleyAbove are the cover and part of the titlepage from Stanley's book about his expedition to rescue the Emin Pasha. The illustrations on this page are also from In Darkest Africa published in 1890. Click on the pictures to see moreHenry Stanley (left) was born and baptized John Rowlands in 1841. He was the illegitimate son of a farmer and a butcher’s daughter. He spent a lot of his childhood…read moreJohn Speke
John SpekeThis map of Lake Victoria (above) is from Speke’s sketch map of the lakes and rivers of east central Africa. It set a new standard for completeness and detail in maps of the African interior. Click on the map to see more. Speke published a book in 1863 about his journey through east Africa. It was illustrated with pictures like the ones on this page of a Myamuezi tribesman with a cockerel,…read moreJames Clark Ross
James Clark RossThe Ross Sea (named after James Clark Ross) is marked on this 1909 map of Shackleton's Antarctic expedition towards the South Pole. The Ross Ice Shelf is marked 'ice barrier'. The other pictures on this page are from John Ross's book about the Rosses' Arctic expedition of 1829-1833. The top image shows their boat, the Victory stuck in the ice at Felix Harbour. The expedition spent a…read morePtolemy's Ancient Geography
Ptolemy's Ancient GeographyPtolemy was the greatest geographer of ancient times. The map on the bottom left shows the world as Ptolemy described it. Ptolemy lived and worked in Alexandria, the Greek and Roman administrative capital of Egypt. His great work on geography and mapmaking, called the Geography, appeared around the year 150 AD. It influenced philosophers and scientists for 1500…read moreMarco Polo and the riches of Asia
Marco Polo and the riches of AsiaIn the Middle Ages, spices and other luxuries from the East came to Europe through a network of traders. The goods travelled across Asia and through the Middle East before they finally reached Mediterranean ports like Venice. Each trader put the price up a bit in order to take a cut. By the time the goods arrived in Europe they were expensive. Marco Polo was born in Venice in about 1254.…read moreSebastian Münster's Cosmographia
Sebastian Münster's CosmographiaSebastian Münster’s Cosmographia is an encyclopaedia of the world as Europeans knew it in 1544. Its descriptions of far off places are illustrated with pictures and maps. Münster was the first map-maker to make separate maps of each continent. He was also the first to list the sources he used. These included other maps, books and explorers’ reports. Münster's Africa Münster’s map of…read moreGerard Mercator
Gerard MercatorThe map above shows the Mercator projection used in a 1917 atlas. Find Greenland (Groenland) on the map from de Isle's atlas of c.1740 (below). How do the two maps compare? Bear in mind that some of the differences will be because people had mapped the world more accurately by 1917 than they had by 1740. Click on the pictures to see the full world maps. Gerard Mercator is one of the most…read moreFerdinand Magellan
Ferdinand MagellanFerdinand Magellan discovered a sea passage from the Atlantic Ocean, through the Americas, to the Pacific Ocean. Magellan was born in Portugal. He moved to Spain around 1516. The Spanish had been looking for a passage past the Americas to the riches of Asia ever since Christopher Columbus’s voyages. The King of Spain gave Magellan five ships and he set off for South America in 1519. He sailed…read moreDavid Livingstone
David LivingstoneA picture of Livingstone from 'Dr Livingstone's Cambridge Lectures' published in 1860. Click on it to see the rest of the title page. Livingstone always thought of himself as a missionary. The dedication above is printed in the front of his Cambridge Lectures. It encourages young men to go to Africa to convert the people there to Christianity. Click on it to see a larger version.As a child…read moreMartin Frobisher
Martin Frobisher(Above) Martin Frobisher: Explorer, Naval Commander and Privateer. Click on the image to see more. (Right) A map showing Martin Frobisher's voyage to find the Northwest Passage.Martin Frobisher started his sailing career in 1553 on trading ships going to Africa. He then made his living as a privateer and a double-agent. He was arrested several times for piracy. In 1574 Frobisher and a business…read moreFrancis Drake
Francis DrakeFrancis Drake became the first Englishman to sail through the Strait of Magellan in 1577. He was on his way to raid Spanish colonies on the Pacific coast of America in his ship, The Golden Hind. He was acting as a privateer for England against her Spanish enemy. A privateer is a pirate with permission to loot. On his voyage Drake also explored the waters south of Tierra del Fuego at the tip…read moreBartolomeu Dias and Vasco da Gama
Bartolomeu Dias and Vasco da GamaMünster’s map on the right reflects the discoveries of Portuguese explorers, Bartolomeu Dias and Vasco da Gama. More about Münster’s book, Cosmographia. Bartolomeu Dias In 1488, Bartolomeu Dias sailed around the southern tip of Africa (the Cape of Good Hope). His voyage showed that the Atlantic and Indian Oceans flowed into each other. Ptolemy had been wrong to think that the Indian Ocean was…read moreJames Cook
James CookJames Cook was the son of a Yorkshire farm worker. He was apprenticed to a ship owner, joined the Royal Navy, and eventually became a famous explorer of the Pacific. He made three Pacific voyages over about ten years. The portrait of Cook on the left is from a book about his second voyage published in London in 1777. Click on the picture to see the title page. First Voyage (1768-1771): New…read moreChristopher Columbus
Christopher Columbus"In our own times by the wonderful enterprise of Christopher Columbus of Genoa another world has been found and added to the Christian community" These words begin the first writing about Christopher Columbus to appear in a printed book. It is found in Psalter (a book of the Psalms from the Bible) in Hebrew, Greek, Arabic, and Chaldaic. The editor has put a note about Christopher Columbus…read moreVitus Bering
Vitus BeringThe titlepage and text above come from a book about Russian discoveries. It was written in 1780 by a Fellow of King's College, Cambridge. It starts with Vitus Bering's discoveries, claiming that they led to all the others. Click on the pictures to see more."This expedition led the way to all the important discoveries since made by the Russians." The Danish explorer Vitus Bering…read moreThe Craik Scholarship
The Craik ScholarshipIn March the College proposes to elect a graduate student studying Physiological Psychology to the Craik Scholarship, tenable from the following October.Eligibility:(i) members of the College: (a) engaged in study which will count towards the requirements of the PhD degree in Physiological Psychology; (b) currently…read moreCurious People: A History of Exploration
Curious People: A History of ExplorationThe Old Library at St John's College has many books, maps and letters that tell the story of how Europeans explored the rest of the world. These webpages will show you some of the highlights through the exploits of these travellers and their exotic destinations.Explore the site using the links below to pages about people, places, or wider topics.Copyright in the images used in this resource…read more