First edition of the Waldseemuller’s British Isles map after Ptolemy
Tabula Prima Europae.
Strasbourg: Johannes Schott, 1513, 405 x 560mm.
£7,500.00
1 in stock
x
Question About This Item?
First edition of the Waldseemuller’s British Isles map after Ptolemy & WALDSEEMULLER, Martin.Stock #: 20723"*" indicates required fields
Add to Wishlist
Export as PDFEnquireSimilar to Sell?Add to Wishlist
Description
This is the very rare first issue of Wäldseemüller's map of the British Isles, published in Johannes Schott's edition of Claudius Ptolemy of Alexandria's classical text, the 'Geographia'. Scotland is depicting veering sharply to the east, a distortion caused by Ptolemy's mis-measuring of the length of the Mediterranean, which he used as the baseline of his map of the world. Ireland is shown too far north.
This map was reissued only once, in 1520. In this second state the title above the map was removed, 'Oceanus Duecalledonius' changed to 'Oceanus Duecalledon' and ' Germaniae Magne Pars' altered to 'Germaniae Magna'. New, smaller blocks were cut for another edition of Ptolemy in 1522.
Martin Wäldseemüller (c.1470-1520) is famous as being the first cartographer to use the name 'America' on a printed map, in 1507. His work on this edition of Ptolemy included an appendix of 20 'modern' maps, which is often described as the first modern atlas.