Culture

To celebrate the 500th birthday of the Flemish geographer, engraver, and scientific instrument, map, and globemaker Gerardus Mercator, the Lionel Pincus and Princess Firyal Map Division of the New York Public Library’s main branch (Stephen A. Schwartzman Building, 5th Avenue and 42nd street), is organizing Mercator at 500, an exhibition of extraordinary cartographic works that not only illuminate the brilliant mind and skillful hand of the cartographer himself but highlight his esteemed position and enduring legacy within the long arc of the history of cartography and geography. Some of the maps on display have not been shown in decades. The exhibition will be on view through September 2012.