Cosmographia

by Ptolemy, Claudius (2nd-century AD), (translated Into Latin By Jacobus Angelus, Cartography By Nicolaus Germanus

[30 Day Return Guarantee] Price: $1,500,000.00

Book Description

Ulm, Germany: Lienhart Holl, 1482 THE FIRST ATLAS PRINTED IN GERMANY, THE FIRST ATLAS MADE FROM WOODCUT BLOCKS, THE FIRST TO CONTAIN HAND-COLORED MAPS AND THE FIRST MAPPING OF THE WORLD BY A NAMED CARTOGRAPHER Super-Royal folio, with woodcut historiated and Maiblumen initials, ornamental woodcut borderpieces, woodcut diagrams in text. 32 full-sheet woodcut maps, 133 leaves. Rubricated and hand-colored throughout (the initials carefully colored in orange and green pigments and several color washes; rubricated with capital strokes and paragraph marks, and several missing initials supplied; yellow washes on text headings; the maps carefully colored in indigo, carmine, and green pigments, with additional color washes). A few early annotations. Seventeenth-century Italian gold-toothed vellum, with small tooled insignia of Cardinal Altieri, the future Pope Clement X Provenance: Pietro dal Verme (17th-century inscription) - Pope Clement X (Emilio Lorenzo Card. Altieri, died 1676); Prof. Victor Goldschmidt of Heidelberg (stamp); Robert L.B. Tobin References: Lloyd Arnold Brown, The World Encompassed, exh. cat. (Baltimore, 1952), n. 37; Rodney W. Shirley, The Mapping of the World (London, 1983), n. 10; R. V. Tooley, Maps and Map-makers (New York, reprint 1990), 24. The text of Claudius Ptolemy’s Cosmographia was translated into Latin from the original Greek by Jacobus Angelus and was first published, in Renaissance times, at Vicenza (1475), Bologna (1477) and Rome (1478). The sumptuous edition published at Ulm in 1482, however, far surpassed all earlier efforts and remains one of the most important publications in the history of cartography. This is the first redaction of the Geography to be printed outside of Italy, the earliest atlas printed in Germany, the first to depart from the classical prototype to reflect post-antique discoveries, the first to be illustrated with woodcuts rather than engravings, and the first to contain hand-colored maps, the design and execution of which were ascribed to a named cartographer. The Ulm edition, moreover, was the first to depart from the classical prototype by expanding the atlas to reflect post-antique discoveries about the size and shape of the earth. To the canonical twenty-seven Ptolemaic maps were added five "modern maps" of Spain, France, Italy, the Holy Land and northern Europe. The world map is of particular interest as it is the first to be signed, by Johannes Schnitzer of Armsheim, and the first to be based on Ptolemy's second projection, in which both parallels and meridians are shown curved to convey the sphericity of the earth. Schnitzer, furthermore, updated the Ptolemaic world picture by incorporating improvements that were probably based on a manuscript of the 1470s by Nicolaus Germanus. One notable addition is a rudimentary depiction of Scandinavia to the north, within an extension of the map's top border. The world map, moreover, embodies what is perhaps the most readily apparent feature of the Ulm Ptolemy: its beauty. The provenance on this book is the Robert Tobin collection sold at Sotheby's New York, December 7, 1999, Lot 302. Hammer price was $750,000 + commission of $77,000 = total cost of $827,000..

Bookseller Terms of Sale

All items may be returned within 30 days of the sale.