The exhibition is organised by the Special Collections of Leiden University, Museum Meermanno and the Embassy of the Republic of Cyprus on the occasion of the Cyprus Presidency of the Council of the European Union in the second half of 2012.

In this small exhibition in the 19th century book room of Museum Meermanno you can see the most important maps of Cyprus from Dutch and Flemish atlases and travel accounts and some of the rare Venetian examples on which these maps were based. This exhibition shows the history of the mapping of Cyprus, as well as the history of Dutch map production, especially the history of atlas publishing in the Southern and Northern Netherlands. Beside the famous atlases of Ortelius, Hondius and Blaeu, some rare works are exposed like a small woodcut atlas of Zacharias Heyns, the first atlas published in Holland in 1598. The Low Countries played an important role in the mapping of the island of Cyprus, because Antwerp and later Amsterdam were the main centres of map and atlas production in the 16th and 17th century.

The exhibition is compiled with pieces from the Special Collections of Leiden University, completed with some works of Museum Meermanno's own collection and composed by guest curator Martijn Storms, curator of maps and atlases at Leiden University Libraries.

For more information please visit the online exhibition: Web exhibition "van de beste eylanden eene", The Dutch mapping of Cyprus.