The Waldseelmuller/Fries Ptolemaic world map

The world according to the ancients, surrounded by puffing wind-heads, published in Ptolemy's 'Geographia'. The map is a reduction of the Waldseemuller's map of 1513, prepared by Laurent Fries for a new 'Chronica mundi' being written by Waldseemuller; however his death c.1520 caused that project to be shelved, so the reduced woodcuts were used to publish a smaller-sized and so cheaper edition of the 'Geography'.

This edition contained a text edited by Michael Villanovus, better known as Servetus. He was burnt at the stake for heresy in 1553, with one of the pieces of evidence against him being a comment on the verso of the map of modern Palestine in this book doubting that the Promised Land was as fertile as the Bible makes out. Considering that this also appears in the 1522 edition (not edited by Servetus) this appears to have been a little unfair. It is said that copies of the 'Geographia' were added to his pyre on the orders of Calvin.

using the blocks cut in 1522. The maps were designed by Laurent Fries from the larger maps prepared by Martin Waldseemuller. Fries's smaller and cheaper edition of Ptolemy's 'Geographia' proved to be very succesfull appearing in four editions, the last being 1541.