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Books > Atlases > Antique book - Atlas by Ptolemy - Fries, 1541
Claudii Ptolemaei Alexandrini Geographicae Enarrationis Libri Octo Ex Bilibaldo Pirckeymheri Tra[ns]latione, Sed Ad Graeca & Prisca Exemplaria À Michaële Villanovano Secundo Recogniti & Locis Innumeris Denuo Castigati. ... Prostant Lugduni Apud Hugonem À Porta. [Hughes de la PORTE] Gaspar Trechsel Excvdebat Viennae. [rule] M D XLI. Folio, (405 x 280 mm), 18th cent. vellum binding. Letterpress title with large woodcut printer's device, 49 double-page woodcut maps and one single-page map, text with 4 large woodcut diagrams and 2 full-page woodcuts of a diagram and armillary sphere showing the projection of the winds, woodcut initials.
The second edition of Ptolemy edited by Servetus. The work divides into three parts; the text, comprising the new Latin translation by the humanist Wilibald Pirckheimer (1470-1530), edited by Michael Villanovanus, known as Servetus (1511-1553); the maps, 27 depicting the ancient world and 22 of the modern world; and the index. The maps are printed from unaltered blocks used in Lorenz Fries's edition printed by Grüninger in 1522 (the final map is captioned with this date and Fries's initials), in Grüninger's Strasbourg edition of 1525 and in the first Trechsel edition printed at Lyons in 1535.
Several of the maps in this edition, including that relating to the Holy Land, are printed without their descriptive text on the versos, indicative of the effect of Calvinism, which meant that many copies of the earlier editions were burnt on Calvin's orders. Michael Servetus, a Spanish theologian and physician, was burnt at the stake in 1553, condemned by Calvin for his doctrinal heresies.
The map "Tabula Terrae Novae" is a derivative of Waldseemuller's map of 1513, the so-called "Admiral's map", it shows a part of the American continent with an account of the voyages and discoveries of Columbus on the verso; the "Tabula Totius Orbis" is the celebrated new map of the world by Lorenz Fries, first used in the Gruninger edition of 1522, and the first map in an edition of Ptolemy with the name 'America', which appears on a portion of the South American Continent.
Brunet IV, 955; Phillips (Atlases), 366; Sabin (America), 66485
Item number: 04237
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