The collection was founded by Frantisek Fiala in 1910 within the geodetic collection. He donated his private collection of 266 maps and atlases to the Museum. After 1945 the collection was systematically extended to document the contemporary state of Czech cartography. The collection is divided into maps and atlases according to historical and geographic keys. Currently, it comprises about 7500 inventory numbers, which corresponds to about 20,000 map sheets and 417 atlases of astronomical, geographic, economic and historical types. The map collection documents, above all, a map picture of Bohemia and Moravia since the 16th century. The oldest exhibits are the map of Bohemia by Mikulas Klaudyan from 1518 represented by copies of cosmographer Sebastian Munster. The collection also contains maps of Bohemia by the authors Johann Criginger (1568), Pavel Aretin and Petr Kaerius from the early 17th century. Rarities are represented by the map of Bohemia in the shape of rose by Christiph Vetter from 1677. The collection also includes the oldest maps of Moravia by Pavel Fabricius and Jan Amos Komensky, maps of Silesia by Martin Helwig from the 16th and 17th centuries, and others.
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