Lot 2035
  • 2035

POMPONIUS MELA. COSMOGRAPHI GEOGRAPHIA. [VENICE: ERWIN RATDOLT, 1482]

Estimate
10,000 - 15,000 USD
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Description

  • Pomponii Mellae Cosmographi Geographia:…  [Venice, Erwin Ratdolt, 1482]
4to (190 x 142  mm). 48 ff. including one full-page woodcut map of the world on verso of a1, first leaf printed in red and black, and 5 - to 11 - line woodcut initials in text; top and left map margins extended with manuscript reinstatement to outer engraved border, title leaf slightly spotted, final leaf re-margined and mounted with some discoloration, light toning to edges of text leaves, which are numbered in an early hand and faint waterstaining in lower corners of final signature, not affecting text. Later stiff vellum with gilt spine title.

Literature

Church 1; Streeter 1; Goff M-452; Shirley #8; Nordenskiöld p. 26, plate 31; GW M34876; BMC V.286; Campbell, Earliest Printed Maps, 91.

Catalogue Note

with the second woodcut map printed in Italy, entitled "Novellae etati ad geographie...". "Ptolemaic maps reached a wider and more varied audience by their inclusion in books other than Ptolemy's Geographia. The first such cases were Pomponius Mela, and Berlinghieri. The simpler conical projection used in the 1478 Rome Ptolemy has here been combined with a 'modern' Scandinavia similar to that found in the Ulm world of 1482" (Suarez). Pomponius Mela wrote his cosmographical treatise in c. 43AD, which was first printed in 1471 without illustrations. The map included in this edition is the first printed map to include new information about the Portuguese voyages into the Gulf of Guinea and to accurately suggest a means around the Cape of Good Hope.

“No earlier printed map recognized this important step towards the rounding of the Cape of Good Hope in 1488, and no map in the incunable editions of Ptolemy reflected this knowledge” (Campbell).

a cornerstone text of the Discovery Period,  and a work listed as the first item in two of the most important and historic collections of Americana, Church and Streeter