Spanning over two hundred years, these four maps illustrate the evolution of cartography from the artistry of the Dutch "golden age" of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries to the more rigorously scientific maps of the "age of enlightenment." With their elevated perspective and foreground compression, these picturesque city views by Braun and Hogenberg (66, 67) encompass many of the elements of the European landscape tradition. During this period, map publishers routinely engaged artists to design the decorative elements for their maps, such as the cartouche in the map of China (68), to increase the visual appeal for their atlases. By the 1790's, these artistic motifs had largely been dropped from maps as their makers sought to claim a scientific accuracy for their works (69).

Long favored by connoisseurs and collectors, these maps exemplify the idea of a cartographic treasure. These four represent a number of such maps which have been donated by collectors to the Osher Map Library. Such gifts have broadened the scope of the collections and allow us to address the needs of different educational communities. Some of these gifts have also enabled us to discover new links between old maps that had hitherto not been realized.