St John's College News
The Way to the Stars: Build Your Own Astrolabe
The Way to the Stars: Build Your Own AstrolabeBuild Your Astrolabe: The Constellations Use the images below to locate and label some of the most recognisable stars and constellations on the rete of your astrolabe. You will need a permanent marker to write on the transparency. The constellations below are labelled with CAPITAL LETTERS, the stars are named in lower case. Click on the links in the text to see artistic…read moreThe Way to the Stars: Build Your Own Astrolabe
The Way to the Stars: Build Your Own AstrolabeBuild Your Astrolabe You will need: Flatpack Astrolabe Kit (pdf) A printer Thin card Acetate transparencies or tracing paper Scissors Glue Permanent marker (to write on transparency) Split-pin paper fastener Ribbon or thin string What to do: Download this pdf file: Flatpack Astrolabe Kit…read moreThe Way to the Stars: Build Your Own Astrolabe
The Way to the Stars: Build Your Own AstrolabeThomas Betson of Syon Thomas Betson (d. 1516) was a religious author and librarian. He was a deacon at Syon Abbey in Middlesex from 1481 until his death, and served as the Abbey's librarian. The Abbey had one of the largest libraries in England at that time. Although he was mainly a religious thinker and author, Betson had a very wide range of interests. This can be seen in…read moreThe Way to the Stars: Build Your Own Astrolabe
The Way to the Stars: Build Your Own AstrolabeCompositio et operatio astrolabii The Arabic text of this work has been lost, and it survives only in a Latin translation possibly made by the twelfth-century scholar Joannes Hispalensis. It was one of the sources that Chaucer used for his own Treatise on the Astrolabe. As the title suggests, the work falls into two parts. The first describes how to construct an astrolabe,…read moreThe Way to the Stars: Build Your Own Astrolabe
The Way to the Stars: Build Your Own AstrolabeGeoffrey Chaucer's Treatise on the Astrolabe Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1340 to 1400) is most famous for having written The Canterbury tales. His Treatise on the astrolabe was written during the 1390s. It is the first 'technical manual' of its kind to be written in English instead of Latin, Greek, or Arabic. It was evidently a popular work because it exists today in more manuscript…read moreThe Way to the Stars: Build Your Own Astrolabe
The Way to the Stars: Build Your Own AstrolabeWhat is an Astrolabe? Astrolabes are an ancient astronomical instrument. They were first used in ancient Greece, were extensively developed in the medieval Islamic world and became the key astronomical instrument of the western middle ages. When mapping the heavens astronomers assume that the stars seen in the night sky are all at an equal distance from the earth, existing on…read moreThe Way to the Stars: Build Your Own Astrolabe
The Way to the Stars: Build Your Own AstrolabeThese webpages were created by the Hoyle Project Associate to support 'Build Your Own Astrolabe' hands-on events held as part of Cambridge Science Festival on 13 March 2010 and 19 March 2011. Use the links below to find out about astrolabes and to make your own working replica. What is an astrolabe? Medieval astronomy: Geoffrey Chaucer's Treatise on…read moreCatering
CateringCollege MealsThe Buttery Dining Room is open everyday during term time, offering a set menu for lunch and dinner, including a daily vegetarian option. The self-service, restaurant provides a varied selection of meals and snacks at subsidised prices, ranging from take-away baked potatoes, freshly baked pizza and sandwiches, to a choice of three main meals with vegetables along with a varied…read moreCurious People - Bibliography
Curious People - BibliographyWhat's on this page? The bibliography lists all the books and manuscripts that were used to make Curious People: a history of exploration. It directs people to the original sources so that they can check the facts and find out more about the subject. Each reference to a book or manuscript has some of the following elements laid out in the following order: Author, with the surname…read moreCurious People - Feedback
Curious People - FeedbackIf you have any comments or questions about this resource, or would like to make suggestions for its improvement, we would be happy to hear from you. Please contact the Library at special.collections@joh.cam.ac.uk The Library welcomes visits from schools and other organisations. If you are interested in organising a visit to the Library, on exploration or any other topic, please…read moreCurious People - Find out more
Curious People - Find out moreWhat's on this page? Below are some books and websites to look at if you want to find out more about exploration. These are just suggestions – there are many more good resources on exploration out there. Try searching a library catalogue or online bookstore for words like ‘Polar regions’, ‘Explorers’, or ‘Discoveries’. Let us know if you have any ideas about books or websites that…read moreThe Scramble for Africa
The Europeans called Africa the ‘Dark Continent’ because it was unknown to themThis map of Africa is from a 1917 atlas. It is colour coded to show what each European power owns. The key is in the bottom left-hand corner. The divisions were arbitrarily decided by the colonising countries. They were not based on existing tribal or geographical boundaries. Some of the new boundaries split tribes in half. Others made huge territories that were difficult to…read morePortuguese Discoveries
Portuguese DiscoveriesThe map on the left was made in 1535. It shows how well the north and west coasts of Africa had been mapped by then. The names of towns are crammed in all along the edge of the coast, but the interior of Africa is almost blank. This reflects how little was known about what lay inside the African continent. The interior is decorated with a rhinoceros, mythical kings, and cyclopes. Portuguese…read moreMedieval Geography
Medieval GeographyPeople in medieval Europe had lost all the knowledge about the world that classical civilizations like the Greeks and Romans had discovered. They found their own ways of picturing the earth. The medieval map of the world on the right appears in a thirteenth-century work of philosophy by William of Conches. Does it look like the earth to you? On this map, the northern hemisphere shows Europe and…read moreMappae 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 more