"[Mapmaking is] an incredibly difficult job. Let's say you're working in the seventeenth or eighteenth century, an age in which mapmakers were sometimes referred to as "world describers." In geometry, describe means to draw or trace the outline of something; in poetry, it means to get at the essence of something, to bring it to life in a way that's both startling and beautiful. You've got to do both kinds of description--and do it in a medium that partially visible, partially mathematical, partially textual, a complicated miscellany of scale, orientation, projection, grids, signs, symbols, lines, colors, words." - Miles Harvey : From The Island of Lost Maps: A True Story of Cartographic Crime

Cartographica Extraordinaire: The Historical Map Transformed by David Rumsey (excellent book to get). "Not satisfied with merely amassing a hoard of handsome old maps, Rumsey, who has already shared his collection with us online, shows us in these breathtaking pages why old maps are so interesting. In the process of telling stories about maps, handsomely reproducing maps, enlarging map details, stitching maps together, and combining maps with the latest digital data, Rumsey and Punt expose us to the joyous disorder of cartophilia." - Allen Carroll, Chief Cartographer, National Geographic Society

The Voyages of the Treasure Fleets, 1421-3 are illustrated here using an animated flash movie. http://www.1421.tv/maps.asp

"Life is the art of drawing without an eraser." - John W. Gardner