Ptolemy, the printed Geographia

Claudius Ptolemy of Alexandria compiled his Geographia in the second century: a treatise on map projection and a list of some eight thousand places with their coordinates. Rediscovered by the Latin West around 1400, it was printed with maps for the first time at Bologna in 1477 and became the frame within which Europe placed its discoveries. Each new edition kept the ancient maps and added tabulae novae, modern maps of the newly known regions: Strasbourg 1513 and 1522 (Waldseemüller and Fries), Basel 1540 (Münster), Venice 1548 (Gastaldi), 1561 (Ruscelli) and 1596 to 1598 (Magini).

To collect the printed Ptolemy is to follow the age of discovery edition by edition. The woodcut maps of Fries and Münster, the copperplates of Gastaldi, Ruscelli and Porro, and the Galignani edition of 1598 with its Mercator-derived world map are the milestones.

The works below are the Ptolemaic atlases and maps in our collection.