Geographia Universalis Vetus et Nova complectens. Libri VIII. Quorum primus nova translatione Pirckheimheri et accessione commentarioli illustrior qu?m hactenus fuerit, redditus est. Reliqui cum graeco & aliis vetustis exemplaribus colati...

Basileae, Henricum Petrum, 1542. Small folio, 31 x 21 cm. Signatures 1 bl., a6 ff., a-c6 ff., 47 double page maps missing the no 40 Franconia, 195 ff. Follows : Autore Iohannes Funccio, Commentarirum in precentem chronologiam , 1544, A-E6, F-G4 and Chronologia A-B6 . Kalendarium 6 ff. Chronologia A-K6, L7 ff (last page with errata), 1 bl. Small warm holes on many pages and on the contemprorary blind stamped female pig binding with saint figures (peau de truie estampee a froid) and two metal clasps, light water stains at some pages borders. Ancient ex-libris on the blank leaf and on the title page. Maps 8-17 and leaves1-3 with small hole neatly repaired. Engraved head of chapters, printers marks, initials, plans and some red lettering. Claudius Ptolemaeus, Egyptian astronomer, mathematician and geographer composed the Geography in Greek in Alexandria about 160 A.D. using information from the geographer Marinus of Tyre. The Greek text, considered as disappeared, was discovered by Maximus Planudes around 1295. Its first Latin translation was begun by Manuel Chrysoloras and was completed by Jacopo Angeli da Scarperia. The illustrated editio princeps was published in Bologna in 1477 with 27 plates. The present copy is the second of the four editions 1540,1542,1545 and 1552 of the German cosmographer Sebastian M?nster (1489-1552) who redisigned its maps, adding new ones and using the same woodblocks for his editions - the present one contains decorative borders described as made from the Holbein drawings -(Brunet supl. II, 331). He used the latin translation of Wilibald Pirkheimer (1470-1530), with corrections of 1535 by Servetus. The first separate maps of the four continents appear here, and include the earliest maps of Africa, the first separately printed map of England and the oldest obtainable woodcut of Scandinavia. The "Nouae insulae XXVI noua tabula is the first printed map to name the Pacific Ocean - first mentioned by Antonio Pigafetta, MagellanΆs surviving chronicler- (Burden, Mapping of North America, 12). It was also Ptolemy who introduced the concept of latitude and longitude to form a grid to cover the whole world. A monument of the printing history. Sabin v. 16, 66484, Bobiani II, 396, Adams P-2224.

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