Edward Tufte has posted a chapter from his soon-to-be-released book Beautiful Evidence on his website. The chapter, titled "Mapped Pictures: Images as Explanations and Evidence", contains the type of beautiful data-filled imagery you might expect from Tufte. The Albrecht Dürer woodcut and incredible sky maps from Johann Bayer are beautiful. I'm looking forward to getting my hands on a copy.

If you haven't read anything by Tufte in the past, try Envisioning Information: it is beautiful and enlightening. Thanks to Coudal for the heads-up on the new chapter.