The titlepage is printed in red, indicating that the copy is, like most surviving copies of this work, a third issue. The work’s patron, Federico Montefeltro died on 10 November 1482, and the printing must therefore have been finished before that date and after 17 April of the same year (the establishment of the league against the Venetians and the Pope during the War of Ferrara, mentioned by Ficino). It is generally dated before September 1482.

The identity of the engraver of the maps remains uncertain but it is believed by some to be Francesco Rosselli, who was one of the earliest known map sellers and was active in Florence until his death in 1513. These maps were sometimes sold separately or in sets without text. 


The thirty-one maps comprise the normal number of Ptolemaic maps (world map, ten of Europe, four of Africa, twelve of Asia) plus four new ones: ‘Novella Italia’, ‘Hispania novella’, ‘Gallia novella’, and ‘Palestina moderna et Terra Sancta’. The so-called “modern maps” appear for the first time in Berlinghieri’s edition as copper engravings, slightly predating the woodcut maps of 

’s Ulm edition of the same year (see SC-TM-1482-Anon-PWorldMap).

These new maps, also found in a manuscript in the Braidense National Library, Milan, are thought by some to be based on those of Pietro del Massaio of Florence (c. 1420–1480) which are found in three manuscripts of Ptolemy by Hugo de Comminellis (the scribe of the famous Urbino Bible, written in Florence 1476–1478, and decorated by Attavante and others, now in the Vatican Library, Urb. Lat. 1–2). The Vatican manuscript’s maps are considered to be closer to those of the third redaction of Ptolemy made by Nicolaus Germanus, which appear in the Ulm edition of Ptolemy.

Berlinghieri’s text is a ‘terza rima’ adaption of Ptolemy’s ‘Cosmographia’, augmented by contemporary writers. Although not considered to be an edition of Ptolemy, these are the only examples of Ptolemy’s maps printed on the original Ptolemaic projection of equidistant parallels and meridians and the first to provide gazetteers for the individual maps. 


Berlinghieri’s translation of Ptolemy’s ‘

’ is in seven books, rather than Ptolemy’s original eight. Book I in (twenty-eight chapters), Books II and III (twenty-one and thirty chapters) cover Europe, Book IV (sixteen chapters) deals with Africa, Books V and VI (twenty-two and eleven chapters) with Asia, and Book VII (ten chapters) deals with India and has an epilogue. It is not by any means a simple version of Ptolemy’s text (although based on Jacobus Angelus’s translation from the Greek into Latin), but contains a mixture of other mythological, geographical, and cartographical elements, including information from sources as varied as Strabo, 

, Pliny, Guido of Ravenna, Flavio Biondo, and contemporary portolan charts.

’ by Claudius Ptolemy contains text in Italian verse, making it one of the earliest atlases produced in a vernacular language. The maps were created with considerable skill by a master engraver thought to be Francesco Roselli. It is one of the earliest examples of copperplate mapmaking: the contemporary maps of Spain, France, Italy, and Palestine appear for the first time in this medium. Smudges, excess ink, and even the printer’s thumbprints can be seen in the work, as its makers grappled with a relatively new technology. The atlas contains the only examples of Ptolemy’s maps printed on his original projection of equidistant parallels and meridians and is the first to provide gazetteers for each individual map.


 was a Florentine humanist who produced his translation of Ptolemy’s ‘Cosmographia’ for an elite intellectual audience. He was the pupil of the philosophers John Argyropoulos and Cristoforo Landino, and a member of the Academia Platonica founded by Marsilio Ficino, who added a short paragraph in Latin to the ‘

’ addressed to Federico da Montefeltro, Duke of Urbino, to whom Berlinghieri dedicated the work. Berlinghieri had originally intended to dedicate it to the Turkish Sultan Mehmet II.

Federico was a great collector of manuscripts (famously acquired from Vespasiano da Bisticci) but owned a great number of printed books as well and had obtained a manuscript of Ptolemy in Greek which Palla Strozzi had acquired a century earlier. The Vatican Library has a finely decorated manuscript of Berlinghieri’s work intended for Federico, which was instead presented to his son Guidobaldo following the Duke’s death. A second finely decorated manuscript of Berlinghieri’s was also made for the wedding of Lorenzo de’ Medici and is now held in Braidense National Library in Milan. The text of the two manuscripts shows little variation, but the maps are not the same.

Ptolemaic world map with windheads

Ptolemaic map of Great Britain

Ptolemaic map of Spain

Ptolemaic map of France (Gaul)

Ptolemaic map of Germany

Ptolemaic map of Slovenia and part of Italy

Ptolemaic map of 15th century France

Updated version of Ptolemy's map of Spain

Ptolemaic map of Italy

Updated version of Ptolemy's map of Italy

Ptolemaic map of Sardinia and Sicily 

Ptolemaic map of northeastern Europe showing Poland, the Baltic, Russia, Ukraine 

Ptolemaic map of the Balkans including Romania, Bulgaria, Macedonia

Ptolemaic map of Greece including Macedonia, Crete and Cyprus 

Ptolemaic map of Northwest Africa and the Balearic Islands and the western Mediterranean 

Ptolemaic map of the North of Central Africa including Libya, Tunisia and the Mediterranean Sea

Ptolemaic map of Egypt

Ptolemaic map of central Africa including Ethiopia, Libya, and Egypt

Ptolemaic map of Turkey and Cyprus 

Ptolemaic map of Samaria (Black Sea region)

Ptolemaic map of Caspian Sea including Armenia, Turkey, and Georgia 

Ptolemaic map of Palestine, Syria, and Cyprus

Map of the Holy Land

Ptolemaic map of modern Iran 

Ptolemaic map of modern Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Oman

Ptolemaic map of modern Russia, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan 

Ptolemaic map of modern China and Mongolia 

Ptolemaic map of modern Pakistan and Afghanistan 

Ptolemaic map of modern India 

Ptolemaic map of Southeast Asia

Ptolemaic map of Taprobana (modern Sri Lanka)

First edition, third issue with sixteenth-century titlepage printed in red
on recto of the first leaf and colophon and register added on f10 recto. Only the third printed “atlas”; the first to be printed in Italian, with text in rhyme; and the first to be printed in any vernacular. With a very interesting early provenance, extending from the mid-sixteenth century to the twentieth: the wealthy Amadi family of silk merchants in Venice, to the renowned collection of Otto Schäfer.


Eighteenth-century vellum over pasteboard, the spine in seven
compartments with six raised bands, green morocco lettering-piece in one.


Folio. 123 leaves, double and triple column, 51 lines and headline, roman letter, initial-spaces, most with printed guides; 29 double-page and two single-page engraved maps, text leaves watermarked with cardinal's hat (large and small), maps variously watermarked with crossed arrows, anchor in a circle, star in a circle, crossbow in a circle and Turk’s hat in a circle.

Geography

Geographia

Berlinghieri's 'Geographia' Atlas, written in vernacular Italian

of Francesco Berlinghieri the Florentine, in 'terze' rhyme in the language of the Tuscan dialect with plates of various sites and provinces according to the maps of Ptolemy

di Francesco Berlinghieri Fiorentino in terza rima et lingua Toscana
distincta con le sue tavole in varii siti et provincie secondo la geographia distinctione dele tavole di Ptolomeo 
