Maps

One of the most decorative seventeenth-century maps of the African continent, this map—surrounded on three sides with vignettes of native peoples and further embellished with depictions of ships, sea monsters, a compass rose, and exotic animals—is a superb example of the Dutch “carte-à-figures” style and one of the approximately 1,200 items in the Library’s Vignaud Collection.

From New Orleans, Louisiana, Henry Vignaud (1830-1922) was briefly a captain in the Confederate Army during the Civil War. After Union forces captured New Orleans in 1862, he escaped and made his way to Paris, France, where he served as an American diplomat and remained for the rest of his life. Vignaud was an avid collector of rare and intriguing materials about American history, and acquired most of the important atlases containing maps of the Americas, along with many works on Europe. Shortly after his death, his widow put his collection up for auction. The University sent William Warner Bishop, who served as the head of the General Library from 1915 to 1941, to Paris to purchase the collection, which became the core of the Library’s extensive holdings in rare and special maps and provided the William L. Clements Library with thousands of books second in importance only to the great treasures Clements himself had already secured.

Also on this page is a map of "New Spain" donated by Regent Lucius Lee Hubbard. For more information on Hubbard and his gifts to the Library, see this page.