1596/ 1598 Giovanni Antonio Magini / Ptolemy maps of Africa and Asia Minor

AfricaAsiaMinor-magini-1598
$250.00
Tavola Quarta Dell' Africa./ Tavola Prima Dell'Asia. - Main View
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1596/ 1598 Giovanni Antonio Magini / Ptolemy maps of Africa and Asia Minor

AfricaAsiaMinor-magini-1598

Africa and Anatolia as Known to the Ancients.
$250.00

Title


Tavola Quarta Dell' Africa./ Tavola Prima Dell'Asia.
  1598 (undated)     9.5 x 6.75 in (24.13 x 17.145 cm)

Description


This is Giovanni Antonio Magini's Ptolemaic map of Africa, from the 1598 first Italian edition of Ptolemy's Geographia. The maps, engraved by Girolamo Porro, graced the most attractively executed small-format edition of the classical geographic text. The verso contains Magini's Ptolemaic map of Asia Minor.
A Closer Look: Africa
This 16th-century map is the most complete of the Ptolemaic maps of Africa, extending far enough south to fully show Ptolemy's mythical source of the Nile River in the 'Mountains of the Moon.' The continent extends further still, expanding east and west as it exits the map: Ptolemy's Indian Ocean was an inland sea, contained by an African landmass that continued to westward to connect with China. As this 16th-century woodcut was a historical work depicting 2nd-century geographical knowledge, this error has been retained.
A Closer Look: Asia Minor
This map embraces from the Aegean Sea to the Euphrates River and from the Black Sea to Cyprus and the Mediterranean Sea. Mountains are shown pictorially. Rivers and towns are marked and named, as well as the region's Ancient Roman provinces. Although Anatolia has been home to many empires, by the time Ptolemy recorded the toponomy of this region, the mapped area had been brought entirely under Roman control; thus, it was among the better-known places of the Ptolemaic World.
The Importance of Ancient Geography
European exploration in the late 15th and early 16th centuries resulted in a massive expansion of their known world, far superseding Ptolemy's 2nd-century geographical knowledge. And yet, mapmakers continued to publish editions of Ptolemy - often simultaneously with modern maps. Despite his antiquated data, Ptolemy's methodology remained essential and authoritative. By employing his great innovation - laying out a grid and assigning coordinates to real-world locations - one could produce a mathematical representation of the world, clearly showing the distances between known features. Every geographer of the Age of Discovery embraced Ptolemy's methodologies to absorb and reconcile new discoveries. Before developing new work, any geographer needed to understand the Ptolemaic foundations of their discipline. Consequently, editions of Ptolemy would continue to be printed well into the 18th century: both translated to the Latin from the Greek, and into vernacular languages such as Italian, as here.
Publication History and Census
These maps were engraved, probably by Girolamo Porro, for inclusion in Magini's 1596 edition of Ptolemy's Geography. The same plates appeared in his 1598 and 1621 Italian editions, which shared a recto with Italian text. These appear on the market from time to time.

CartographerS


Giovanni Antonio Magini (June 13, 1555 - February 11, 1617) was an Italian astronomer, astrologer, cartographer, and mathematician. Born in Padua, he completed his studies in philosophy in Bologna in 1579. In 1588 he was chosen over Galileo Galilei as the chair of mathematics at the University of Bologna after the death of Egnatio Danti. Magini was a prolific writer, putting forth theories of celestial motion (he was a supporter of a geocentric solar system), the use of quadrants in surveying and astronomy, and trigonometry. In 1608, Magini produced the first map of Italy to improve on that of Gastaldi: his meticulously researched and beautifully engraved 8-sheet Italia Nuova was hugely influential: upon its publication, Blaeu promptly copied it to produce his own wall map of Italy; the rest of the mapmaking establishment swiftly followed suit. Consequently, virtually every 17th century map of Italy can be identified as a derivative of Magini's monumental achievement. His atlas, Atlante geografico d’Italia, was published posthumously by his son in 1620. This work was intended to include maps of every Italian region with exact nomenclature and historical notes. He also served as court astrologer for the Duke of Mantua. More by this mapmaker...


Girolamo Porro (1520 - 1604) was an Venetian engraver, humanist, illustrator, map maker, and publisher. Porro was born in Padua but lived most of his life in Venice. Porro worked with a number of important Venetian humanists including Camillo Camilli, Scipione Barbuo, Porcacchi, Ruscelli, and Ariosto. Cartographically Porro has produced only a few works, but these include such important works as the maps for Porcacchi's 1572 Isole piu Famose del Mondo (including the first obtainable specific map of North America), and the maps included with Ruscelli's 1574 Italian translation of Ptolemy's Geographia. Learn More...


Claudius Ptolemy (83 - 161 AD) is considered to be the father of cartography. A native of Alexandria living at the height of the Roman Empire, Ptolemy was renowned as a student of Astronomy and Geography. His work as an astronomer, as published in his Almagest, held considerable influence over western thought until Isaac Newton. His cartographic influence remains to this day. Ptolemy was the first to introduce projection techniques and to publish an atlas, the Geographiae. Ptolemy based his geographical and historical information on the "Geographiae" of Strabo, the cartographic materials assembled by Marinus of Tyre, and contemporary accounts provided by the many traders and navigators passing through Alexandria. Ptolemy's Geographiae was a groundbreaking achievement far in advance of any known pre-existent cartography, not for any accuracy in its data, but in his method. His projection of a conic portion of the globe on a grid, and his meticulous tabulation of the known cities and geographical features of his world, allowed scholars for the first time to produce a mathematical model of the world's surface. In this, Ptolemy's work provided the foundation for all mapmaking to follow. His errors in the estimation of the size of the globe (more than twenty percent too small) resulted in Columbus's fateful expedition to India in 1492.

Ptolemy's text was lost to Western Europe in the middle ages, but survived in the Arab world and was passed along to the Greek world. Although the original text almost certainly did not include maps, the instructions contained in the text of Ptolemy's Geographiae allowed the execution of such maps. When vellum and paper books became available, manuscript examples of Ptolemy began to include maps. The earliest known manuscript Geographias survive from the fourteenth century; of Ptolemies that have come down to us today are based upon the manuscript editions produced in the mid 15th century by Donnus Nicolaus Germanus, who provided the basis for all but one of the printed fifteenth century editions of the work. Learn More...

Source


Magini, G., Geografia, cioè, Descrittione vnivesale della terra, (Venice: Galignani) 1598.    

Condition


Excellent. One spot in text area, else fine with bold strikes and generous margins. Size given for full printed areas, approximately the same verso and recto.

References


OCLC 878505708.