Apr 8, 2014 6:30 AM

Gallery: 900 Years of Tree Diagrams, the Most Important Data Viz Tool in History

Illustrations by The Trustees of the British Museum
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Anonymous, "Tree of Consanguinity," *Decretalium copiosum argumentum*, ca. 1450-1510. (Detail). "A woodcut depicting the various ties between family members in the popular archetype of the tree of consanguinity."
Illustrations by Bibliotheque Nationale de France
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"Tree of Jesse." From Jacobus de Varagine, *Legenda Aurea*, ca. 1480. "The book covers the lives of various saints and ecclesiastical leaders...In this outstanding woodcut, each ancestor is placed between leaves of the single winding vine that represents the core of the genealogy."

Illustrations by Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
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Hattie Mann Marshall, "Genealogy of the Lee family of Virginia and Maryland," 1886. "Each generation is represented by a distinct branch, and its descendants by smaller off-shoots. Where one has died, a broken limb remains as a memento."
Illustrations by Juan Osborne
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Juan Osborne, "In Obama's Words," 2011. "Visualization of the words used in eight hundred of US president Barack Obama's speeches from January 2009 to November 2011."

Illustrations by Jean-Daniel Fekete
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"Treemap visualization of the Linux kernal 2.5.33," Jean-Daniel Fekete, 2002. "A rectangular treemap depicting the entire Linux kernal...Rectangles represent files, and their size is proportional to the file's size."
Illustrations by Arthur Howard Estabrook and Charles Benedict Davenport
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"Genealogical tree of the Nam family," Arthur Howard Estabrook and Charles Benedict Davenport, 1912. "Radial genealogical chart of the Nam family. Squares indicate males, circles represent females."

Illustrations by Jesse Thomas
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Leslie Bradshaw, Jesse Thomas, Tiffany Farrant-Gonzalez, Joe Chernov, and Jesse Noyes, "The Blog Tree: New Growth," 2012. "A tree of connections among a group of popular, recently launched blogs."
Illustrations by Marcin Ignac
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Marcin Ignac, "Carrot2 clusters," 2008. "Part of an interactive sunburst visualization of search results...The innermost ring represents root clusters or branches, while the succeeding radial ranks depict their various subclusters."

Illustration by Rare Book Collection, Lillian Goldman Law Library, Yale Law School
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"Tree of affinity" from Johannes Andreae, *Super Arboribus Consanguinitatis Affinitatis et Cognationis Spiritualis et Legalis,* 1478. "A remarkable tree produced by the Italian expert in canon law Johannes Andreae (1270-1348)....maps laws and regulations on kinship and marriage decreed by the ecclesiastical authority of the Catholic Church.
Illustrations by The Trustees of the British Museum
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Anonymous, "The fall of man," sixteenth century. "Illustration, probably the frontispiece to a sixteenth-century edition of the New Testament, featuring the well-known biblical tale of the fall of man."

Illustrations by Ghent University Library
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"Tree of virtues and tree of vices." From Lambert of Saint-Omer, *Liber floridus*, 1121. "A remarkable illustration...depicting two opposing arboreal schemes in the form of fig trees.
Illustrations by the Walters Art Museum
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Peter of Poitiers, "Genealogy of Christ," ca. 1130-1205. "Part of a remarkable early thirteenth-century parchment scroll by the French scholastic theologian and chancellor of the University of Paris from 1193 to 1205, Peter of Poitiers. The long scroll shows the genealogy of Christ in descending order through a series of connected portraits in roundels."

Illustration by The Trustees of the British Museum
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Anonymous, "Tree of Consanguinity," *Decretalium copiosum argumentum*, ca. 1450-1510. "A woodcut depicting the various ties between family members in the popular archetype of the tree of consanguinity."

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