Atlas de Lázaro Luis

The Iberian Peninsula lead Europe in exploring the rest of the world and as such it also produced some of the finest cartography from the 15th and 16th centuries. The Atlas of Lázaro Luis is a Portuguese work from 1563 that enjoyed great popularity during the 16th century and is an accurate reflection of the world as it was then known to European cartographers. The maps are populated by depictions of the local peoples in their indigenous dress and include other details such as the local flora, the course of rivers, mountain ranges, villages, cities, and the heraldry of lands across the world. A beautiful star chart precedes the rest of the work and a full-page portrait of the Madonna and Child brings it to a close.