Local historian Robert Feeney will discuss the development of early navigational instruments and how their creation paralleled the growth of empires during the Age of Discovery. The compass, a cross-staff or astrolabe and nautical charts and maps were all the tools available to a navigator at the time of Christopher Columbus. The program will include a display of original and replica historical navigational instruments that be shown and their uses explained.
This program is in conjunction with the exhibit 100 Maps That Changed the World: Discovery of the Americas and the Establishment of the United States. This exhibit features rare maps and atlases from the 15th through the 18th century from the collection of the Asbury family. Many of these early maps were developed as navigation tools to aid exploration and trade in the 16th and 17th centuries.