Museum Night at the Palace of the Commonwealth – a unique evening with Ptolemy's maps
On Saturday, May 17, the National Library of Poland invites you to celebrate the Museum Night at the Palace of the Commonwealth, will be open to visitors until 9:00 p.m. Only on this day will it be possible to see the Renaissance maps based on the 2nd-century treatise "Geography" by Claudius Ptolemy, one of the greatest scholars of antiquity.
The manuscripts presented were created in the second half of the 15th century on the basis of Ptolemy's work, which contains detailed descriptions of the regions of the world known at the time and instructions for their representation on maps.
One of the most outstanding creators of Ptolemaic maps was Italy-based Nicolaus Germanus, who prepared luxurious, richly illuminated manuscripts containing a map of the Ekumen – the entire known world at that time – and 29 detailed maps of Europe, Asia and Africa. One of the copies, dedicated to Pope Paul II, most likely came to Poland as a gift for Jan Zamoyski. It survived the turmoil of war and is now in the collections of the National Library of Poland.
We cordially invite you, as this is a unique opportunity to see what the world looked like through the eyes of scholars from five centuries ago.