The Scientific Library of the PAAS and the PAS in Cracow

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The Cartographic Collection of the Scientific Library of the PAAS and the PAS in Cracow currently consists of over twelve thousand atlases, maps, and plans published 16th-21st century.

Diverse collection includes the most famous early modern atlases by cartographers Abraham Ortelius and Gerard Mercator, and maps by Jodocus Hondius, Erik Dahlberg, Guillaume le Vasseur de Beauplan and Tobias Mayer. Our collection of the 18th-century maps consists of priceless examples from the pre-partition Poland, like maps of Voivodships made by Charles Perthées for the king Stanislaw August Poniatowski, and Giovanni Rizzi-Zannoni’s Carte de Pologne issued by Józef Aleksander Jabłonowski on the eve of the First Partition (1772). In this part of our collection we also have a singular issue of the two-colour map printed on canvas: Neue Landcharte des Koenigreichs Pohlen, Grosherzogthums Lithauen, und des Koenigreichs, und Herzogthums Westpreussen (1775) and one of three preserved issues of Carte d'Amerique divisée en ses principaux pays made in Paris by Jean Clouet in 1785.

Among our 19th-century cartographic publications we have one of the first geological maps of Poland, Carta geologica totius Poloniae by Stanisław Staszic (1806), Atlas statystyczny Polski (Statistical Atlas of Poland) by Stanisław Plater (Poznań 1827), and historical maps by Joachim Lelewel. Cartographic collections received many donations from the Polish geographers working abroad, like Ignacy Domeyko, or Wojciech Chrzanowski. The AAS sponsored the publication of Atlas Geologiczny Galicji (Geological Atlas of Galicia), issued 1887-1912.

In the collection of the 20th-century cartography we have the album of topographical maps of the United States of America issued by the U.S. Geological Survey 1885-1945, as well as the series of Canadian geological maps issued by the Geological Survey of Canada 1978-1980. Library also holds three examples of the Monumenta Poloniae Cartographica facsimile of the early modern maps of Poland made by Karol Buczek and published by the PAAS in 1939. Save for few examples, whole issue was destroyed by the Nazi occupants during World War II.

 

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