Incunable map of Persia

PTOLEMY, Claudius.

Quinta Asie Tabula.
Ulm, Johan Reger, 1482-86. Original hand colour, oxidisation of blue colour restored. Woodcut, 385 x 555mm.

Minor restoration near centrefold;

A very early map of Persia, with metal-type lettering within a coloured trapezoid border, with a Latin-text on verso with a coloured capital.
The map was originally published in 1482 by Lienhart Holle in an edition of Ptolemy's 'Geography' with revisions by the cartographer Nicolaus Germanus Donis. This was the first European atlas published outside Italy and the first to be illustrated with woodcut maps. Soon afterwards Holle went bankrupt, probably because of the cost of producing the atlas, and Reger acquired the rights to the 'Geography', reissuing the second and last edition in 1486.


Stock ID : 9281