Here I was surrounded by nearly three-score maps spanning an entire continent and three centuries, and I was lost down a rabbit hole. I was digging in every direction and only getting deeper. The end of the semester was approaching and the overwhelm was real. To save my sanity, I put it all down and walked away.

At the end of 2023, we received a donation of 55 maps of Europe, from Ireland to Illyricum, ranging in dates from 1573 to 1845. I didn’t know a thing about cartography other than how to spell the word. So, I used the appraisal document that accompanied the donation as my starting point for processing this collection. And that’s when things started going off the rails.

The appraisal featured a photo of each map with its title, author, date, dimensions and other information. As I read through it, with the maps in front of me, it became clear that the appraisal document had a few errors. One title seemed to be derived from a poor reading of the caligraphic script used to identify Scotland. Another had the title, etc., copy-pasted from another map. And yet another had a picture of a map that was not even part of this donation! How was I supposed to trust anything from this professional (?) document? Were the stated authors actually the authors? And wouldn’t they be “cartographers?“ And how come these various map seller & collector websites seem to have the same map but with different names and dates? Wait, this map has a cartographer, an engraver, a printer AND a publisher?!

Around Summer, 2024, I pulled my head out of that rabbit hole (for now) and decided to start at what I thought was square one. Since I now knew even less about cartography than when I started, I researched the history of cartography. That didn’t help much because the History of Cartography, the actual field studying the study of cartography, really began to formalize in the 1960s. Cartography, the making of maps, is thousands of years old. I went back to Paleolithic rock drawings, portolans, mappa mundi, maps from the early Arab and Muslim empires, and still got lost.

I took a break. Then UR went on winter break. I eventually found my way back to the maps, literally and figuratively. Since I couldn’t rely on the appraisal document, I figured I could rely on the maps themselves. Many of them had their publishers and/or creators printed in the cartouche or along the margins. For those that did not, plenty of online databases, either map sellers or other libraries & archives, had similar maps by the same creators so that I could switch between various sites to narrow down which map I had. I tried to be as accurate as possible while also remembering my frantic trips down those rabbit holes. As the saying goes, don’t let perfect be the enemy of good. As my boss reminded me, we are not a map repository, so for a few maps, close enough had to be good enough.

The majority of these maps are folio maps. They were originally part of an atlas, but some enterprising book sellers centuries ago realized that while they could make some money selling one atlas, they could make a lot more money selling the maps individually. The separation of map from atlas increases the difficulty of properly identifying the map, especially because atlas publishers had a tendency of inserting newly printed maps into the mix with previous editions of the atlas, or excluding a map if one wasn’t available at time of binding and selling. Or, two maps could have been printed from the same copper plate, but decades apart by different publishers employing their own colorists.

Somehow, the pieces all started clicking together. I was able to build my inventory list, and wrangle some intellectual control over this collection. The only real challenge in writing the finding aid was figuring out the modern place names for various locations, some of which had been latinized or featured kingdoms or bishoprics that no longer politically exist. Where is Sarmatia?

These maps will be on display all semester (Spring 2026) in the case just outside the Book Arts, Archives & Rare Books office suite on the newly opened ground floor. I’ll be swapping them out every two weeks or so. And if you want to use them for your research, go to archives.richmond.edu and search for collection MS-77.