A PRESENT FROM BELOW THE EQUATOR. A SNIPPET FROM THE MANUSCRIPT OF ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT’S JOURNAL FROM HIS TRIP TO AMERICA. FROM THE COLLECTION OF RADOWITZ
A PRESENT FROM BELOW THE EQUATOR. A SNIPPET FROM THE MANUSCRIPT OF ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT’S JOURNAL FROM HIS TRIP TO AMERICA. FROM THE COLLECTION OF RADOWITZ

Summary/Abstract: The collection of autographs of the former Prussian State Library in Berlin – now held by the Jagiellonian Library – contains a valuable autograph of Alexander Humboldt – fragment from Humboldt’s travel diary entitled Sobre algunos puntos interessantes para la Navegación, o extracto de las observaciones de longitud deducida de Eclipses del Sol y de la Luna de Satellites de Jupiter, distancias lunares y Chronometros en los annos de 1799–1803. The Humboldt’s manuscript travel diary was acquired by the Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz Foundation in Berlin from a private owner in 2013. The part which is discussed in the present article (pp. 71–84) was cut out of Fascicle VIII of the notebook in the nineteenth century – most probably by Humboldt himself – after which it was annotated and given as a present to General Radowitz, who was a collector of autographs. It eventually found its way to the Royal Library in Berlin together with Radowitz’s entire collection.

• Details
• Contents