Quantum cartography

My husband and I visited the Library of Congress on the final day of winter break this year. In a corner, we found a facsimile of a hand-drawn map: the world as viewed by sixteenth-century Europeans. North America looked like it had been dieting, having shed landmass relative to the bulk we knew. Australia didn’t appear. Yet the map’s aesthetics hit home: yellowed parchment, handwritten letters, and symbolism abounded. Never mind street view; I began hungering for an “antique” setting on Google.