.jpg?w=1)
Details
MELA, Pomponius (fl. 43 A.D.) Cosmographia, sive De situ orbis. Venice: Franciscus Renner, de Heilbronn, 1478.
Chancery 4o (207 x 144 mm). 48 leaves. 26 lines, printed marginalia. Headings printed in red. Roman type: 5:109. 6-, 5- and 4-line white-on-black woodcut initials. (Some worming catching letters, last leaf with marginal repair, small stain at lower inner margin at end.) Modern brown morocco gilt, edges gilt, by Riviere. Provenance: some marginalia in an early hand -- Boies Penrose (bookplate) -- Oliver Henry Perkins (bookplate).
Fourth edition. Mela's text is the earliest surviving Latin work on geography and the only Roman treatise devoted exclusively to that subject. The book exerted a considerable influence on later authors, partly through the extensive citations in Pliny. "Despite his general inferiority as a geographer, Pomponius knew more than Strabo about the positions of Britain, Ireland, and the coasts of Gaul and north Germany; he was also the first to mention the Orkney Islands" (DSB). HC *11017; BMC V, 195 (IA. 19867); BSB-Ink. P-686; CIBN M-282; Harvard/Walsh 1614-15; Klebs 675.4; Pr 4174; Goff M-450.
Chancery 4
Fourth edition. Mela's text is the earliest surviving Latin work on geography and the only Roman treatise devoted exclusively to that subject. The book exerted a considerable influence on later authors, partly through the extensive citations in Pliny. "Despite his general inferiority as a geographer, Pomponius knew more than Strabo about the positions of Britain, Ireland, and the coasts of Gaul and north Germany; he was also the first to mention the Orkney Islands" (DSB). HC *11017; BMC V, 195 (IA. 19867); BSB-Ink. P-686; CIBN M-282; Harvard/Walsh 1614-15; Klebs 675.4; Pr 4174; Goff M-450.