The view from Mont Blanc

At 628 centimetres this view from the summit of Mont Blanc is, after the Sheldon Tapestry, the longest map held in the Bodleian collection.

mont blanc main

This panoramic view has been created by joining together the 13 sheets and title page from a collection of views of, and from, Mont Blanc. Mont Blanc is the highest mountain in the Alps, and forms part of the border between Italy and France. Part of the view includes the tracks to the summit made by the illustrator, Paul Helbronner, a major figure in the cartography of the French Alps.

track

Panoramic views are a popular way of showing mountains on maps, and give a better idea of height than the usual use of contours, hachures or shading found on normal topographic maps. Another example can be seen in an earlier blog post (http://blogs.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/maps/2014/05/)

oblongFeatured in this photograph is the MacKerras Reading Room, on the 1st floor of the Weston Library. This is the Music Reading Room, and has books on music, composers and scores on the shelves.  The MacKerras is part of the Special Collections group of rooms and, along with the Rare Books Reading Room is where manuscripts, modern papers and rare material, as well as music books, are consulted.

Tour d’horizon complet du sommet du Mont Blanc (4807m), from Description géométrique détaillée des Alpes Français, published in Paris in 1921. 20485 a.8