![PTOLEMAEUS, Claudius (c.100- c.170 A.D.). Geographiae ... libri VIII. [Basel: Henricus Petri, March 1552].](https://www.christies.com/img/LotImages/2002/CKS/2002_CKS_06642_0060_000(051619).jpg?w=1)
Details
PTOLEMAEUS, Claudius (c.100- c.170 A.D.). Geographiae ... libri VIII. [Basel: Henricus Petri, March 1552].
2° (313 x 200mm). Double column. With blanks a4, p4 and CC4. Woodcut portrait of Ptolemy on title verso. 54 numbered double-page woodcut maps, letterpress on verso within a series of woodcut borders. Woodcut illustrations and diagrams, 2 full-page. Woodcut historiated initials, publisher's device on verso of final map. (Title lightly soiled, preliminaries waterstained, maps on later guards, map 46 with short tear at border, last few maps and appendix slightly waterstained in gutter, final leaf torn at inner margin and tipped onto following blank.) Modern vellum, red edges (slightly bowed). Provenance: C. Fournerat (19th-century stamp at foot of title).
Fourth edition of Münster's Ptolemy, with an additional treatise and enlarged indices by Konrad Wolffhart. Although Ptolemy's Geographia was based on a similar, but now lost work, by Marinus of Tyre, he was probably the first cartographer to employ systematical listings by latitude and longitude. The most notorious distortion in his attempt to map the known world was the excessive length of the Mediterranean. But his work nevertheless remains 'a remarkable factual as well as scientific achievement' which had no successor for 1,400 years. Adams P-2230; DSB XI, p. 198; Phillips I, p. 125; Sabin 66488.
2° (313 x 200mm). Double column. With blanks a4, p4 and CC4. Woodcut portrait of Ptolemy on title verso. 54 numbered double-page woodcut maps, letterpress on verso within a series of woodcut borders. Woodcut illustrations and diagrams, 2 full-page. Woodcut historiated initials, publisher's device on verso of final map. (Title lightly soiled, preliminaries waterstained, maps on later guards, map 46 with short tear at border, last few maps and appendix slightly waterstained in gutter, final leaf torn at inner margin and tipped onto following blank.) Modern vellum, red edges (slightly bowed). Provenance: C. Fournerat (19th-century stamp at foot of title).
Fourth edition of Münster's Ptolemy, with an additional treatise and enlarged indices by Konrad Wolffhart. Although Ptolemy's Geographia was based on a similar, but now lost work, by Marinus of Tyre, he was probably the first cartographer to employ systematical listings by latitude and longitude. The most notorious distortion in his attempt to map the known world was the excessive length of the Mediterranean. But his work nevertheless remains 'a remarkable factual as well as scientific achievement' which had no successor for 1,400 years. Adams P-2230; DSB XI, p. 198; Phillips I, p. 125; Sabin 66488.
Special notice
No VAT will be charged on the hammer price, but VAT at 17.5% will be added to the buyer's premium which is invoiced on a VAT inclusive basis