Every visitor who passes through the vestibule of the Mitchell Library stops to admire the magnificent marble mosaic of the Tasman Map. Over a period of only forty years from 1606 to 1644 and based on sixteen separate discoveries, the first map of Australia took shape and was not to change for another 125 years until the British explorer James Cook charted the east coast in 1770. The story of these voyages of discovery and how the Mitchell Library managed to acquire this cartographic treasure will bring new recognition to an icon of both Dutch and Australian history.

SUGGESTED READING

• The Tasman Map – A Biography of a Map, Ian Burnet, Rosenberg Publishing