Geographicae Enarrationis, Libri Octo.

Fries / Ptolemy / Villanovanus (Servetus)

Published by Fries / Ptolemy / Villanovanus (Servetus), 1541

About this Item

Fries / Ptolemy / Villanovanus (Servetus) / 1541 / Geographicae Enarrationis, Libri Octo. (Safe 1, 92392) Folio. 17th-century or early-18th-century mottled calf. Spine in seven compartments separated by raised bands. Elaborate gilt tooling in all but the second where a morocco title label reads "PTOLEM | GEOGRA[F]". (Overall rubbing. Minor wear and splitting at the hinges.) Front flyleaf with a 19th-century black ink stamp "LESECQ", possibly J.L.H. Le Secq, though not conforming to the stamps in L.1336. Housed in modern vellum over red cloth clamshell box. (One or two small wormholes scattered throughout. Faint marginal dampstain in places. Some minor faint stains. Woodcut on page 128 trimmed at the outside edge.) Collation: 149, [1] pages, 1 leaf; 50 woodcut maps, all but one double-page (Plansipheric world map bound between maps 23 and 24); [avi], [bvi], [cvi], [dvi], [evi], [fvi], [gvi], [hvi] (i.e., complete). A Handsome Example of the 1541 Edition of Fries Adaptation of Waldseemuller s Ptolemy. A very clean and attractive example of Fries 1541 edition of Ptolemy, including the first map in a Ptolemy atlas to name America and the suites of ancient and modern maps. The so-called Fries Ptolemy was first published in 1522 by Johann Koberger. Fries is generally thought to have edited the maps. The 1522 edition of Fries' work is very rare, suggesting that the work was not commercially successful. In 1525, an improved edition was issued, with a re-edit of the text by Willibald Pirckheimer, from the notes of Johannes Regiomontanus. After Gr ninger died in 1531, the business was continued by his son Christoph, who seems to have sold the materials for the Ptolemy to two Lyon publishers, the brothers Melchior and Gaspar Trechsel, who published a joint edition in 1535, before Gaspar Trechsel published an edition in his own right in 1541. Fries was initially a physician, working in various places in the Alsace region and Switzerland before settling in Strasbourg around 1519. He was known for his medical writings and met the Strasbourg printer and publisher Johann Gr ninger, who was responsible for printing several of Waldseemuller's maps and supervising the cutting of the maps for the 1513 edition of Ptolemy edited by the St. Die group of scholars, including Walter Lud, Martin Ringmann, and Martin Waldseemuller. In addition to the book's complement of maps, it includes a full-page armillary sphere showing the inhabited earth by Albrecht D rer (Meder 262). The Ancient Maps Fries' work follows the typical cartographic tradition in Europe in the 15th and early 16th centuries in that it reproduces the maps of Claudius Ptolemy, the famous Greco-Roman mathematician, astronomer, geographer who was active in the 2nd Century AD. The Modern Maps Generally, the maps in the modern section are reduced copies by Lorenz Fries of the modern maps that appeared in Martin Waldseemuller s Ptolemy of 1513, Geographie Opus Novissima. To that group, Fries has added a map of Southeast Asia, East Asia, China, and Japan, and a navigational map of the world. Seller Inventory # 92392

Bibliographic Details

Title: Geographicae Enarrationis, Libri Octo.

Publisher: Fries / Ptolemy / Villanovanus (Servetus)

Publication Date: 1541

Binding: Hardcover

Condition: VG

Book Type: Book