Fantasy Map Collection from Dante to Zelda Debuts in Zurich

A rare collection of maps from fictional worlds, assembled by London lawyer Sunderland Cohen, is going on public view for the first time at Zurich's Central Library. The exhibition, titled 'Fantastical Maps from Legendary Stories', opens on 4 September and runs until 5 December. It features 60 works from Cohen's 168-piece Ex Carta collection, including the first printed maps of Dante's Hell from 1506, a hand-drawn map of Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson, and a map from the 1986 video game The Legend of Zelda. Cohen, who began collecting in 2024, inherited her passion from her father, Neil Sunderland, whose own collection of rare world maps and atlases is now available digitally as Oculi Mundi. The Zurich show also includes items from the library's own holdings. Concurrently, the Sunderland Collection will be featured in 'Night Mapping' at the Warburg Institute in London starting 21 October. Curator Jost Schmid-Lanter, head of the library's map collection, anticipates that works tied to Narnia, Harry Potter, and Winnie the Pooh will stir childhood memories in visitors.