The Gennadius Library is a repository of an outstanding collection of about 3,000 historical maps on Greece, the Balkans and Turkey, which clearly occupied an important position in the collection of Joannes Gennadius. Spanning a period from the late fifteenth to the twentieth centuries, these maps are either drawn in hand or were printed by noted cartographers and map publishers. Among many important maps may be noted the series of island maps in the Ionian and Aegean seas from a fifteenth century manuscript of Buondelmonti’s Liber Insularum (illustrated on this page), an early nineteenth century chart of the Aegean by Nicolas Kefalas (possibly the first printed Greek nautical chart), and numerous maps concerned with the political development of the Balkan states in the late nineteenth century. Leonora Navari and Alexis Malliaris assembled and catalogued this valuable cartographic material under the wise leadership of Catherine DeG. Vanderpool and Natalia Vogeikoff-Brogan in the early 2000’s.
