Beschreibung:

PTOLEMAUS, Claudius (ca. 100-ca. 170). Liber geographiae cum tabulis et universali figura et cum additione locorum quae a recentioribus reperta sunt diligenti cura emendatus et impressus . Edited by Bernardus Sylvanus. Venice: Jacobus Pentius de Leucho, 20 March 1511. 2 o (418 x 282 mm). Collation: ?? 4 A 8 B-H 6 I 8 [1-7 4 8 2]. 92 leaves. Title printed in red, text in two columns printed in red and black, spaces for initials with guide letters, 28 double-page woodcut maps printed in red and black on the last 30 leaves (i.e., all but the last 2 leaves, containing Sylvanus' cordiform "modern" world map, printed on both rectos and versos), 4 woodcut diagrams in text, the last, on H6r, nearly full-page. (Title dampstained and frayed, text bifolium ??2.3, cordiform world map and map bifolium 3/1.4 supplied, the first 4 of these leaves somewhat wormed, 3/1.4 reinforced at gutter, cordiform world map worn along gutter, cropping to captions of Ptolemaic world map and of Decima Asia map, to clouds in left-hand and lower margins of modern world map, and to degree borders of British Isles map, some internal tearing to map leaf 2/4, affecting the toe of Italy, first few maps wormed at gutters, a few maps with edges frayed, some dampstaining.) Contemporary Italian, probably Venetian, blind-stamped dark brown goatskin over flexible pasteboard, sides panelled with outer border and large central lozenge of repeated grapevine tool, the borders outlined by quintuple blind fillets, inner panel divided into compartments by blind fillets, the compartments and central lozenge decorated with single repeated leafy arabesque tool arranged to various patterns, flat spine with 3 flat bands, compartments with geometric decoration of blind fillets, plain edges (lacking four pairs of ties, new endleaves, the upper cover damaged by knife scoring, old patch repair near upper corner, some abrasions and worming, mainly to lower cover). Provenance : early marginalia on H6r; a few later Italian notes at tops of maps. FIRST VENETIAN EDITION. Bernardus Sylvanus based his text on the Latin translation of Jacobus Angelus. Although the maps are arranged in the usual Ptolemaic order, Sylvanus amended them to take account of recent discoveries, with somewhat limited success, partly because his sources were already outdated, but also because he was less interested in correcting the cartography of the New World than in updating the mapping of Europe. Nonetheless, the most important map of the atlas is his cordiform world map, the first in this projection, the second world map in an edition of Ptolemy to show America, and the first map to show Japan. The edition is also noteworthy for featuring the earliest example of two-color cartographical printing. The major regional names are printed in red in upper case to differentiate them from town names and less important localities, which are printed in black in lower case (the cordiform world map also includes a few regional designations in red). All the place names are printed in letterpress type that was apparently set into the woodblocks, possibly as slugs produced through a method of stereotype printing (cf. D. Woodward, introduction to the facsimile edition of Sylvanus' world map [Chicago, 1983]). A tool very similar but not identical to the arabesque tool on the present binding appears on a binding attributed to Venice by Tammaro de Marinis, on an undated 16th-century Florentine manuscript: de Marinis II:2261, pl. 388. Adams P-2218; Alden and Landis 511/8; Harrisse 68; Phillips Atlases 358; Sabin 66477; Shirley 31-32.