Rare book, 16.25 x 23 in.

Courtesy of Caltech Archives and Special Collections

Georg Braun and Franz Hogenberg were mapmakers, artists and engravers who published a six-volume atlas containing maps and bird’s-eye views of 16th and 17th-century world cities. The view of Granada, Spain in the 1572 edition of Civitates orbis terrarum populates the sky with history and iconography, migrating birds and dramatic cloud formations, presenting a sky teeming with complexity and grandeur equal to the civilization below.