One of the first examples of 16th century two-colour printing

SYLVANUS, Bernard.

Quarta Europae Tabula.
Venice, 1511. Woodcut on two sheets conjoined, printed area 370 x 480mm.

A rare map of Germany, from Sylvanus's edition of Ptolemy's Geography. Having many names printed in red makes it one of the first examples of two-colour printing, achieved by printing the sheet twice. It is also what Shirley calls 'an isolated example of Venetian cartographic enterprise', forty years before Gastaldi's version of Ptolemy. It was never reissued. As the maps were printed on both sides of the sheet, this has half of the two maps of Austria and France on the reverse.


Stock ID : 12588