SOLINUS, Caius Julius and Pomponius MELA

Polyhistor, rerum toto orbe memorabilium thesaurus locupletissimus...

      Michaelis Isingrinius and Henricus Petrus Basle, 1538. Folio, with two folding woodcut maps, one with a slight tear, 18 woodcut maps in the text (three full-page), woodcut initials, woodcut printer's device on title and verso of last leaf; title leaf slightly darkened; several early ownership entries on title and one stamp removed; a very nice copy in an old Spanish binding of marbled sheep. First edition with commentary and woodcut maps by Sebastian Münster of these two classic geographical texts. Solinus was a legendary Roman geographer, grammarian and compiler whose Polyhistor survived in manuscript until the age of printing, first appearing in print in Venice in 1473. It incorporated much of Pliny's Natural History as well as Pomponius Mela's texts on geography, and also included brief remarks on a number of historical, social, religious and natural history questions. Pomponius Mela's work was the classic geographical text of the Middle Ages, which in part expounds the argument that the known landmasses in the Northern hemisphere must have antipodean counterparts to balance them.This important edition was edited by Hermann Münster, a very significant figure in the history of sixteenth-century cartography. In 1540 Münster published his own modernised edition of Ptolemy, which included a number of ground-breaking remade maps; he was one of the earliest map-makers to create space in the woodblock for the insertion of place-names set in metal type.Of particular interest here is the large folding map of Asia, which covers the area from the Cape of Good Hope and the Nile, the Indian Ocean, India, China and the Pacific Ocean, and which shows in the northeast corner a strip of land called "Terra incognita": this was 'the earliest representation of the north-west coast of America on a printed map' (Burden) and in fact according to Eames (see Jones) 'the earliest... indication of the western coast'. Burden also points out that this map also has one of the earliest depictions of a strait between Asia and America, nearly 200 years before Vitus Bering's voyages to the region. It is also the first work to include a printed map of Asia as a whole."Regnum Malacha" in the southeast corner is in the approximate area of north-eastern Australia. 'The other folding map shows Greece with Asia Minor. Among the smaller maps within the text, that of Russia (p. 48) is especially noteworthy; here, for the first time, the river system is shown with reasonable exactness, and it has been suggested that this map might be founded on communications from Baron Herberstein (1486-1566), who executed two diplomatic missions for the Emperor Maximilian in Moscow...' (Kraus).Burden, 'Mapping of North America', 11; Burmeister, 171; Hantzsch, p. 25, pp. 76--84; Harrisse (Addenda), 143; JCB (Additions), p.7; Jones, 'Adventures', 25; Nordenskiold Collection, II, 85; Nordenskiold, 'Facsimile Atlas', p. 108, no. 27.