This Virtual Tour was created from the exhibition, Boston & Beyond: A Bird's Eye View of New England on display in the Boston Public Library, Copley Square, from January through June, 2008.

In designing Boston & Beyond, we selected a group of 48 bird's eye views of New England towns showing the region's expansion and evolution during the last half of the 19th century. Each map is a unique blend of geographic representation along with the biases — both real and imagined — of the artists and those who commissioned them to create these exceptional works.

Drawn from carefully chosen vantage points — and unique (non-north) orientations — these maps present their subjects through the eyes of their creators (and the priorities of those who commissioned the works). They are distinctive hybrids of cartography and artistry, of historical representation and cultural ambition, of detailed accuracy and fanciful imagination.

One of the goals of Faces & Places is to create an environment that will inspire dialogue, encouraging us to understand each other's cultural heritage, learn how we are different, but still realize how much we have in common. In creating this exhibition, we selected a number of historical maps that portray the countries from which the greatest number of Bostonians originate. These maps depict the countries at various stages in their historical, geographical, political, and economic development.

According to the 2000 census, the eight countries whose immigrant population informs the cultural diversity of the city of Boston are Cape Verde, China, Dominican Republic, England, Haiti, Ireland, Italy, and Jamaica. Immigrants from each of the countries represented in this exhibition celebrate the culture that is their heritage in different ways in their new home.

Journeys of the Imagination is an exhibition designed to explore the various ways that mapmakers from the 15th century until today, have created and translated their real and imagined world views.

The maps in this exhibition depict the excitement of discovery and scientific investigation, the artwork, and the social, historical and cultural influences that informed the creation of these documents. We will examine these maps, not just as geographic records of the world at a particular time, but as a document that has a story to tell, both about how and why the map was created, and what the map has to say about a particular culture's world view.

As an endlessly fascinating record of civilization in the context of its history, geography, politics, and religion, we hope that you too are captivated by the cartographic expressions displayed in this exhibition.