![PTOLEMAEUS, Claudius (c.100-c.170). La geografia. Commentaries by Sebastian Münster, translated by Pietro Andrea Mattioli. Venice: Niccolò Bascarini for Giovanni Battista Pederzano, 1548 [colophon dated October 1547].](https://www.christies.com/img/LotImages/2005/CKS/2005_CKS_07137_0016_000(101619).jpg?w=1)
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PTOLEMAEUS, Claudius (c.100-c.170). La geografia. Commentaries by Sebastian Münster, translated by Pietro Andrea Mattioli. Venice: Niccolò Bascarini for Giovanni Battista Pederzano, 1548 [colophon dated October 1547].
8° (171 x 110mm). 60 double-page copper-engraved maps by Jacopo Gastaldo after Gastaldo and Münster. Woodcut side-borders to title. Woodcut portrait of Ptolemy, woodcut illustrations and diagrams, initials, and publisher's device [Vaccaro Marche p.318, fig. 427] on 2D7r and repeated on h8v. Retaining blank 2D8. (A few gatherings lightly browned, light dampstaining, very slight marginal worming affecting a few maps, worming on map guards slightly affecting 2 maps on fold, some minor adhesive damage to title.) Contemporary Italian limp vellum, titled in manuscript on the spine, yapp fore-edges (a little marked and cockled, partially detached from bookblock, lacking front endpapers, rear endpapers dampstained causing losses). Provenance: Jo. Maria' Vitus, Urbino (contemporary inscriptions on title and on colophon).
FIRST EDITION IN ITALIAN. THE FIRST SMALL-FORMAT ATLAS AND 'THE MOST COMPREHENSIVE ATLAS PRODUCED BETWEEN MARTIN WALDSEEMüLLER'S GEOGRAPHIAE OF 1513, AND THE ABRAHAM ORTELIUS THEATRUM OF 1570' (Burden 16). This important edition, printed in a portable format and thus the first to address the needs of travellers, contains the first full series of Ptolemaic maps to appear since the incunable editions of the preceding century. The maps of the present edition were engraved by the prolific Giacomo Gastaldi (c.1500-c.1565), cosmographer to the Republic of Venice; while Gastaldi based his engravings of the 26 Ptolemaic maps on the woodcuts by Münster which illustrated the 1540 Basel edition, the 34 modern maps (which are interposed between the ancient maps), were of his own design, and contain significant innovations. The Americas appear, linked by a land extension to Asia, in the modern World map (map 59) and in the 'Carta marina' (map 60; the first sea chart depicting the modern world) and five maps are devoted exclusively to the Americas. These five maps are the earliest printed American regional maps: they include the first separate map of the South American Continent ('Tierra nova', map 54); the earliest separate map of the Gulf Coast, Mexico, and the present south-western United States ('Nueva Hispania', map 55); the earliest individual map of the east coast of North America ('Tierra nueva [del Bacalaos]', map 56), showing the discoveries of Verrazzano and Cartier. The translation by the botanist Pietro Andrea Mattioli appears in this edition only; it was superseded by Girolamo Ruscelli's translation, which was first published in 1561 and frequently reprinted. The only earlier Italian version was Berlinghieri's verse paraphrase (Florence: ca. 1482). Adams P-2234; Harvard Italian 404; Nordenskiöld Collection 214; Phillips Atlases 369; Sabin 66502; Shirley Atlases of the British Library T.PTOL-9a and b. Cf. Burden The Mapping of North America 16-17.
8° (171 x 110mm). 60 double-page copper-engraved maps by Jacopo Gastaldo after Gastaldo and Münster. Woodcut side-borders to title. Woodcut portrait of Ptolemy, woodcut illustrations and diagrams, initials, and publisher's device [Vaccaro Marche p.318, fig. 427] on 2D7r and repeated on h8v. Retaining blank 2D8. (A few gatherings lightly browned, light dampstaining, very slight marginal worming affecting a few maps, worming on map guards slightly affecting 2 maps on fold, some minor adhesive damage to title.) Contemporary Italian limp vellum, titled in manuscript on the spine, yapp fore-edges (a little marked and cockled, partially detached from bookblock, lacking front endpapers, rear endpapers dampstained causing losses). Provenance: Jo. Maria' Vitus, Urbino (contemporary inscriptions on title and on colophon).
FIRST EDITION IN ITALIAN. THE FIRST SMALL-FORMAT ATLAS AND 'THE MOST COMPREHENSIVE ATLAS PRODUCED BETWEEN MARTIN WALDSEEMüLLER'S GEOGRAPHIAE OF 1513, AND THE ABRAHAM ORTELIUS THEATRUM OF 1570' (Burden 16). This important edition, printed in a portable format and thus the first to address the needs of travellers, contains the first full series of Ptolemaic maps to appear since the incunable editions of the preceding century. The maps of the present edition were engraved by the prolific Giacomo Gastaldi (c.1500-c.1565), cosmographer to the Republic of Venice; while Gastaldi based his engravings of the 26 Ptolemaic maps on the woodcuts by Münster which illustrated the 1540 Basel edition, the 34 modern maps (which are interposed between the ancient maps), were of his own design, and contain significant innovations. The Americas appear, linked by a land extension to Asia, in the modern World map (map 59) and in the 'Carta marina' (map 60; the first sea chart depicting the modern world) and five maps are devoted exclusively to the Americas. These five maps are the earliest printed American regional maps: they include the first separate map of the South American Continent ('Tierra nova', map 54); the earliest separate map of the Gulf Coast, Mexico, and the present south-western United States ('Nueva Hispania', map 55); the earliest individual map of the east coast of North America ('Tierra nueva [del Bacalaos]', map 56), showing the discoveries of Verrazzano and Cartier. The translation by the botanist Pietro Andrea Mattioli appears in this edition only; it was superseded by Girolamo Ruscelli's translation, which was first published in 1561 and frequently reprinted. The only earlier Italian version was Berlinghieri's verse paraphrase (Florence: ca. 1482). Adams P-2234; Harvard Italian 404; Nordenskiöld Collection 214; Phillips Atlases 369; Sabin 66502; Shirley Atlases of the British Library T.PTOL-9a and b. Cf. Burden The Mapping of North America 16-17.
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