Rare First Edition - Hand Coloured - Ptolemy's Atlas in Latin
With the Maps of Magini including both Ancient and Modern
Printed in Venice 1596 - In a Fine Contemporary Binding
[ATLAS], Ptolemeus, Ptolemy, [Magini, editor] GEOGRAPHIAE UNIVERSAE Venice Haerdes Simonis Galignani de Karera 1596
2 parts bound in one volume The Rare FIRST EDITION OF MAGINI'S LATIN TRANSLATION Extensively illustrated with 64 Full Page Maps. FINE HAND COLOURING HEIGHTENED WITH GOLD AND SILVER. , very handsomely bound in contemporary blind-tooled calf, all edges gilt and enchiseled, gilt armorial device to upper cover and a smaller device in blind to the lower cover, a copy with fine provenance, decorations to the spine in blind and handsomely decorated overall. Housed in a quarter morocco clamshell case. A very pleasing and well preserved copy. Very handsome, first two leaves with old stamp removed and the area overlaid with paper. The colouring, very attractive. Some wear to joints but the binding is firm and strong and very sound.
A RARE AND IMPORTANT HANDCOLOURED COPY OF THIS FINE ATLAS. MAGINI'S FIRST EDITION WITH LATIN TRANSLATION. The maps in this new edition, engraved by Porro, are in nice, dark impressions. They were reprinted in the Magini editions of 1597, 1608, and 1617 and in Italian translations in 1598 and 1621, the plates in these latter printings often showing considerable wear or retouching. Three of the maps are of the world, and four relate to the Americas.
Claudius Ptolemy is best remembered for his rejection of Aristarchus's theory that the earth revolves around the sun, developing a geocentric belief that prevailed for 1400 years after his death. Even now Ptolemy's influence can still be felt. Twentieth century navies still find it more convenient to navigate by Ptolemaic astronomy, and every day we speak of the rising and setting of the sun rather than the turning of the Earth (Wilford, The Mapmakers, p. 25). The long introduction includes an exhaustive gazetteer of places known to Ptolemy and the ancients and a discussion of how to make the practice of cartography more systematic, more scientific. This was the first known recounting of the rules of scientific mapmaking (Ibid.).
$US26500
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