Browse Items (23 total)

Gerard Mercator (1512–1594) was born in Flanders, now known as Belgium. The son of a shoemaker, he graduated in 1532 from the University of Louvain, where he studied astronomy, geography, and mathematics. Afterwards he worked as an engraver,…

By the 17th century, England was becoming a leader in the intercontinental trade of goods. Wealthy merchants created joint-stock companies which would promote exploration and increase trade routes. Investors in these companies pooled their resources…

Antonio Sansone was born in 1856 in Termini Imerese, Sicily. He immigrated to the United States in 1880.  By 1899, he had established Antonio Sansone & Company, a wholesale dealer of fruit located on East Main Street, near the city market, in…

The Fry- Jefferson map was first published in 1753. It was, at the time, the most comprehensive map of 18th Century Virginia. Joshua Fry and Peter Jefferson were two of the most successful surveyors in the Virginia Colony. They collaborated and…

Thomas West (1576–1618), the twelfth Baron De La Warr, was appointed by King James I in 1606 to be part of the royal council that oversaw the Virginia Company of London. He monitored the situation in the Virginia colony from England and may have…

This photograph shows a deerskin mantle that was believed to have been presented by Paramount Chief Powhatan (whose given name was Wahunsonacock) to Captain Christopher Newport of the Virginia Company in 1608. The mantle is embroidered with shells…

Sebastian Münster (1488–1552) was a German cartographer, cosmographer, and scholar. In 1544, he published Cosmographia, the earliest description of the world written in German, although editions were also published in English, French, Italian, and…

Theodore de Bry (1528–1598) was born in Liege, Flanders (now part of the Netherlands), to a wealthy Protestant family and was trained as a goldsmith and engraver. As the Spanish and British began to explore North and South America, de Bry became…

In 1906, Robert Baden-Powell presented this bust of John Smith to the Commonwealth of Virginia. Although best known as the founder of the Boy Scout movement, Baden-Powell was also an artist of considerable skill. The family of Baden-Powell's mother…

This map is attributed to Captain John Smith (1580–1631) and is one of the earliest representations of Virginia. Smith began a three-month exploration of the Chesapeake Bay and its adjacent waterways in June 1608. He interacted with Indigenous…