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Section 1 Terra Australis Incognita
Speculation on the existence of a great south land can be traced back to classical Greece. For centuries the belief flourished that a large land mass must exist in the south, to counterbalance the land in the north. The lack of accurate information did not prevent people from offering written and pictorial descriptions of this great southern land, but seemed rather to encourage the imagination. So long the realm of myth, Terra Australis became a setting for utopias and fantasies-a land of limitless possibilities-raising the hope that a second Eden might exist, a paradise rich and unspoiled. The gradual mapping of the edges of the unknown-increasingly factual rather than imaginary-by Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, French and English navigators of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, failed to discover the fabled land.
1. Abraham Ortelius, 1527-1598 2. Abraham Ortelius, 1527-1598 3. Nicolaes van Geelkercken, c.1585-1672 4. Jacques Cassini, 1677-1756 5. Amsterdam: Louis Renard, 1718?
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A selection of images from the Paradise Possessed exhibition. National Library of Australia. Click here to find out more about NLA exhibitions. Copyright: ©1998, National Library of Australia
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