Orientation

Welcome, fellow traveller!

Here you can find information about the key features of Oculi Mundi — the Eyes of the World.

Background

Curious to know how The Sunderland Collection started, or what Oculi Mundi is all about? Click here

If you would like to find out more about The Sunderland Collection Art Programme, click here.

Accessibility

Oculi Mundi is for everyone and aims to be as accessible as possible.

It should run smoothly on different Internet speeds and has been designed to be used on mobile phones, tables, laptops, and PCs.

Accessibility toggles, buttons and captions have been built into the entire platform, for users who prefer varying sizes of fonts, contrast, less animation, voiceovers, and Alt Text.

The Oculi Mundi Team reviews the website regularly: we work closely with our technical partners to make all webpages, functionalities, and content accessible and compliant to international access standards.

Oculi Mundi recognises that parts of the platform are not yet fully accessible but strives to offer alternative access solutions until they becomes available in the near future.

If you experience any problems accessing Oculi Mundi or would like to suggest improvements, please contact us. We would love to hear from you!

A gallery of maps in the shape of a three-dimensional sphere. This orb is covered in colourful antique terrestrial and celestial maps which are suspended on a dark background

Collection Environments

Oculi Mundi is the online home of The Sunderland Collection, a private curation of maps, atlases, globes, and books of knowledge.

We want to make the Collection as accessible as possible for study or the simple joy of browsing. For that reason, you will find two environments for exploring the Collection: Explore and Research.

Explore mode presents beautiful images in a cluster, where you can browse and filter. You can peek inside the atlases and books to see internal maps and plates; you can view items at scale, and you can zoom in at super high resolution. An overview of each object is provided in text which you can find in a pop out panel by clicking 'Information'.

In Research mode, the Collection's objects are displayed in a more traditional way — but the functions are the same. You can filter or browse, view internal pages, and see items to scale. In this mode, full catalogue information is provided about each object.

In both modes you can expand the panels to increase the size of them width-ways for easier reading.

Need more information, such as a text page from an atlas? Contact Us.

Two colourful cut-out figures from the Nuremberg Chronicle who are reading and holding books.

Stories

Here, we feature articles and videos of different lengths, on all kinds of themes relating to ancient cartography, Collection Highlights, and the Art Programme. Scroll through the universe of Stories and click on a tile to find out more.

To begin, why not check out How to Read a Map and How Maps Were Made!

If you have a great idea for a story or would love to know about a specific topic or item from the Collection, please let us know by contacting us.

Cut out decorative illustration of a yellow sun and a white moon in a green tree. The sun and the moon have faces.

Exhibitions and Events

You can find details of past and future exhibitions, institutional loans, panel discussions, Sunderland Symposia and much more right here on Oculi Mundi.

You can switch between the Online and Physical using the toggle at the bottom of the screen when looking at the Exhibitions and Events menu.

This is also where we will be sharing the programmes and registration links for upcoming events, so keep an eye on this part of the platform, and sign up to the Oculi Mundi Newsletter

Oculi Mundi has also a special interactive digital gallery space for online exhibitions. We host parallel online exhibitions for each artist participating in the Art Programme and for Collection highlights and curations. These gallery spaces are easy to move through by using the navigational toggles in the lower part of the screen, and when you are in the spaces you can use your cursor to explore each curated space. If you would like a static view of the gallery space, which contains all of the imagery and information but lacks the animation, click 'Overview' and this will present the exhibition in a simple, scrollable layout.

Podcast

You can find every episode to our award-winning podcast, WHAT'S YOUR MAP? on Oculi Mundi.

Explore this endlessly fascinating world in our podcast which is hosted by historian, writer and map expert Jerry Brotton. Immerse yourself in the world of maps and mapping, as Jerry meets a range of guests from around the world who share their stories and the maps that inspire them.

Each episode has a dedicated page so as you listen, you can zoom in to explore each of the maps discussed, learn all about our incredible and eclectic guests, and find even more rabbit-holes to go down here on Oculi Mundi.

At the top of each page, there is a handy player so you can listen to each episode as you read, or click on the platform icons for a specific app.

Illustrative portrait of Ptolemy from Durer's 1515 Celestial Chart - Ptolemy emerges from a cloud and wears a tall top hat and a coat. He is holding a globe by its axis and is making a measurement with a set of compasses.

References

The ancient map world is huge! We have provided a References area that presents helpful background information and context.

In this section, you can find biographies of map-makers and other characters, look up terms in the Glossary, and explore our Timeline, which shows the items from The Sunderland Collection in order of time, alongside famous historical events.

More features and content will be rolled out over time — sign up to our Newsletter to be the first to know!