PTOLEMAEUS, Claudius (after 83 - ca 168 AD)

Clavdii Ptolemaei Alexandrini Geographicae Enarrationis Libri Octo. Ex Bilibaldi Pirckeymheri, tralatione, sed ad Graeca & prisca exemplaria a Michaele Villanouano iam primum recogniti

      Lyons : Melchior and Gaspar Trechsel, 1535. Folio (16 3/8 x 11 2/8 inches). Large woodcut on title-page, 49 fine double-page woodcut maps ("Europae", map 4 remargined with some decorative border and letterpress in facsimile, one marginal repair not affecting image or text) and one single-page map, most with text on versos enclosed within elaborate woodcut borders (attributed to Hans Holbein and Urs Graf); text with 4 large woodcut diagrams and 2 full-page woodcuts of a diagram and armillary sphere showing the projection of the winds by Albrecht Durer (verso of map l4), woodcut initials. Near contemporary paneled calf, each cover decorated with broad borders of blind fillets and elaborate roll tool, with gilt fleurons at each corner, the central panel decorated with small gilt tools, remains of two pairs of brass clasp and catches (rebacked to style, extremities worn). The first edition to be edited by Michael Villanovanus, better known as Servetus (1511-1553), born at Villanueva, in Aragon, Spain. While working as an editor for the publisher Trechsel he wrote the preface and many of the modern descriptions on the verso of the celebrated maps. He also edited a second edition printed at Vienne in the Dauphine, in 1541. For his writings against the Holy Trinity and infant baptism Servetus was burnt at the stake in 1553. However there were forty counts of heresy against him, including the offence of having asserted, in the text accompanying map 41 (The Holy Land), that Palestine was not as fertile as it was generally believed. Many copies of the book were burned with him on the orders of John Calvin, although the offending passage was not actually written by Servetus, and had appeared previously in the 1522 and 1525 editions, and was pointedly omitted from the second edition of 1541. Of the fifty magnificent maps four relate in some way to America: the "Tabula Terre Nova", number 28, with an account of the voyages and discoveries of Columbus on the verso; "Norbegia et Gottia", number 34, showing Greenland as a peninsula of Europe; "Tabula Nova Orbis", number 49, attributed by some to Columbus and known as the "Admiral's Map", and by others to Vespuccius; and "Tabula Totius Orbis", number 50, the celebrated new map of the world by Lorenz Fries, first used in the Gruninger edition of 1522, and the first map in an edition of Ptolemy with the name 'America', which appears on a portion of the South American Continent. The work is essentially in three parts: the text, comprising the new Latin translation by the humanist Wilibald Pirckheimer (1470-1530), edited by Servetus; the maps, 27 depicting the ancient world and 22 of the modern world, with one map of Lotharingia; and the index. Alden & Landis 535/14; Phillips Atlases 364; Sabin 66483. Harrisse No. 210. Sabin No. 66483. Medina Vol. I. No. 98. Catalogue description prepared for and on behalf of Arader Galleries by Kate Hunter. .