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. More by this mapmaker...

Donnus Nicolaus Germanus (c. 1420 – c. 1490) was a German cartographer instrumental in the 15th century dissemination and improvement of Ptolemy's Geographia, and thus was a primary mover in establishing the basis of all advances in the study of geography in the Renaissance. Nothing is known of his early life, and his full birth name is lost. (Nicolaus Germanus simply means 'Nicholas the German' and Donnus is a title: 'Master.') It is thought that as early as 1442 he was Prior of the Benedictine monastery in Baden-Württemberg. He does not appear in his role as a cosmographer until 1466, when in Florence he produced his first known revision of Ptolemy's Geography  In this he was not isolated: The first such translation of the work to Latin from the Greek, by scholar Manuel Chrysoloras, was undertaken in Florence in the last years of the fourteenth century - certainly by 1400. Nicolaus did introduce several innovations to the work - notably in his introduction of the first maps to show areas not known to Ptolemy (Scandinavia in particular.) But his most important role appears to have been a disseminator of Ptolemy's work. He is known to have produced a pair of globes and a world map for the Vatican in 1477, and thereafter is credited with no fewer than fifteen manuscript copies of Geographia authored by him, or directly copied from his work. Most significantly, barring the 1482 Florence Ptolemy, all printed Geographia of the fifteenth century were copied from Nicolaus Germanus' manuscripts. Learn More...

Lienhart Holle (? - 1492) was a German printer, living and working in Ulm. He is most noted for his 1482 Ptolemy, the first edition of Geographia printed north of the Alps. Little is known of his life. He appears in the historical record in 1478 as a formschneider and woodcut dealer, among other things printing playing cards. He would then become the third book printer in Ulm, producing some outstanding works of the incunable period, most notably his edition of Ptolemy. Masterpiece though this was, it ruined him financially within two years of its publication. The elaborate designs of his books made them extravagantly expensive to produce, and he could only raise the capital by borrowing it, mortgaging his printing materials to a Venetian patron, Justus de Albano. As with many early printed works, a broad market failed to materialize, and Holle was unable to pay his debts. De Albano seized the blocks and typeset for nonpayment, and Holle was forced to flee Ulm in 1484. He is thought to have attempted a return to the city in later years but there is no record of him that appears after 1492. Learn More...

Johann Reger (fl. 1480-1499) was a German printer living and working in Ulm at the end of the 15th century. While most of his output was not illustrious, he was employed by Venetian investor and patron Justus de Albano to print an edition of Ptolemy's Geographia using the blocks and typeset produced by Lienhart Holle for the 1482 edition of that work. (Holle had mortgaged this printing material to Albano, who subsequently seized it for nonpayment.) Reger completed this Albano edition of Ptolemy in 1486. Learn More...