thomas.konradi

In 2019, the three regional libraries of Lower Saxony started to catalogue and digitize their maps in a joint project – supported by the state’s Ministry of Science and Culture – which is the first component of the distributed digital regional library initiative.

The exhibition shows maps from the collections of the Herzog August Bibliothek, the Regional Library of Oldenburg and the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Bibliothek – Niedersächsische Landesbibliothek. For centuries, these libraries have collected maps of the Baltic and of northern Europe. The maps and atlases originate from princely collections, from military contexts and from private academic

Starting in Tallin, three routes lead through maps of the early modern period. In the North, one travelled through the Scandinavian countries, from the South, one took the route through the European mainland, and the central way led over the Baltic Sea. These routes through the maps are a journey through early modern cartographic knowledge.

Tallin is the starting point of three routes. Until 1918, the Estonian capital was officially called Reval, and this name appears frequently on old maps. In 1997, Tallinn’s old town was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site as an “extraordinarily complete and well-preserved example of a European trading city of the Middle Ages”.