Published in the Venice edition of Mela’s 'Cosmographia, sive De situs orbis', Tony Campbell (1998) suggests that the edition’s printer, 

, may have been the mapmaker, since this and his T-O map of 1480 are the two earliest woodcut maps printed in Italy.

This map illustrates an early edition of Mela's 'Cosmographia'. The labeling system is characteristically sparse – only the three continents (Asia, Africa and Europe) and Indian Ocean are named. The mountain and river shapes interestingly resemble those on medieval maps such as the Psalter World Map (BL Add. MS 68281, fol. 9r, c.1250) or the Tournai Maps (BL Add. MS 10049, fol. 64r-v, c. 1150). The map is cast against a nondescript architectural space framed by four Corinthian columns and a coffered ceiling. The title is a Latin motto: 'If, in this New Age, man seeks to follow the winding paths of geography, he is bound to find the flowers that belong there, for he deserves them.' The names of the winds are represented by wind heads surrounding the map, and the legends are provided in letterpress. 

This map was published in the same year as 

’s celebrated 'Cosmographia'. Ratdolt’s edition of Mela’s world map shows Europe, Asia (including Sri Lanka with a keyhole-shaped bay), and a large part of Africa. Notably, this was the first map to depict contemporary Portuguese knowledge of the west coast of Africa, which led six years later to the rounding of the Cape of Good Hope. Noteworthy too is the depiction of the Nile, with its sources in the mountains south of two unnamed lakes, which roughly correspond to lakes Albert and Victoria. Another obvious addition is the presence of Scandinavia and, for the first time, the Orkney islands off the northeast coast of Scotland.

 map of the world shown as suspended in an architectural setting with four columns.

This lyrical map shows the world on a Ptolemaic projection hanging in space, amid four pillars. Although the map is quite simple and small in scale, it is packed with interesting content and charming decorative details. Its title captures the expeditionary zeitgeist of the early modern world: ‘If, in this New Age, man seeks to follow the winding paths of geography, he is bound to find the flowers that grow there, for he deserves them’. 

The map illustrated an early printed edition of the ‘Cosmographia’, composed by 

 around 43 CE. It was the first to depict contemporary Portuguese knowledge of the west coast of Africa and was consulted by the Columbus brothers before they set out on their western voyage in 1492. It is also the source for another important and early map of the world: 

Mela is the earliest known Roman geographer, and for centuries, his 'Cosmographia' remained the only formal geographical treatise available in Latin before the translation of Claudius Ptolemy’s ‘

’ in 1406–7. Mela’s work was rarely illustrated with a map before the early fifteenth century. 

Mela’s work was especially important in the last quarter of the fifteenth century. It guided a number of expeditions, most famously serving as one of the principle works consulted by the Columbus brothers as they planned for their westward voyages. In particular, Mela’s climatic theory and its proposition of a southern temperate zone with an inhabited continent ‘Antichthon’ (counter earth), had tremendous influence on Christopher Columbus’s western voyages. It was also the primary source for many contemporary cartographic works such as 

’s hugely influential world map from the ‘Nuremberg 

The first map to depict contemporary Portuguese knowledge of the west coast of Africa, it was consulted by the Columbus brothers before they set out on their western voyage in 1492. It is also the source for another important and early map of the world: 

A Bijoux World Map from Mela's 'Cosmographia'