Remarkably, about one hundred and twenty examples of the two editions of the 'Ulm Ptolemy' that survive intact today. For the 1482 edition, Holl ordered his paper stock from Italy, and used expensive lapis lazuli for the blue of his oceans. In this later edition, 

 used less extravagant materials. What was once presumably a blueish-purple wash in the oceans and seas has faded to brown after a five-hundred-year interval, as is typical of nearly all examples of the 1486 edition.

The world map is drawn using the homeotheric projection, which Ptolemy considered superior but more difficult to construct. It stretches from the Western Atlantic across to Asia and covers 180 degrees of longitude. Generally, the world is shown as it was understood by the Alexandrine ancients, extending from Great Britain in the Northwest, the Canary Islands in the West, mid-China in the east, and North Africa in the South. The Indian Ocean features a large island, Taprobana (modern day Sri Lanka) at its centre. A new addition of a rudimentary Scandinavia appears within an extension of the map above the neat-line. The whole globe is surrounded by a broad decorative border including twelve windheads. 

Africa is connected to Asia by a southern land bridge turning the Indian Ocean into a land-locked sea. Following classical geography, the Nile is shown rising from two great lakes fed from rivers in the 'Mountains of the Moon'. The outline of the western coast of Africa extending down towards the equator follows the Ptolemaic model, but with several additional place names and details deriving from fifteenth century Portuguese-sponsored explorations along the coast.

Interestingly, China is split between 'The Kingdom of Sina' (China) in the south, and further north, the 'Kingdom of Serica' (Silk). This division of China may come from the inability of the Greeks and Romans of the Classical period to correlate the differing accounts describing China.

This is the first printed world map to include territory below the Tropic of Capricorn, and is also the earliest printed map to show the northernmost reaches of the Atlantic Ocean. A curious change between 

’s edition (this book) and that of Holl’s is that the Tropic of Capricorn, correctly named in the first edition, has been mistakenly labelled Tropic of Cancer in the reissue.

The Sunderland Collection

This is a revised edition of one of the most celebrated early world maps from Lienhart Holl’s 'Cosmographia' (1482), colloquially known as the 'Ulm Ptolemy'. This map draws from recent European 'discoveries' to create a fusion of the latest cartographic information with Classical knowledge.

After Holl’s bankruptcy in 1484, the Venetian publisher Justus de Albano acquired his materials and commissioned Johann Reger to produce this second edition in 1486. While the pigments used on this hand-coloured map would still have been luxurious, they were far cheaper than the ruinously expensive lapis lazuli used in Holl’s edition. The beautiful shades of this map and more restrained colouring allow greater sight of the underlying engraving, including the lovely details of the windheads and rivers.

This early world map is often referred to as the ‘Ulm Ptolemy’. It was originally published in Lienhart Holl’s atlas 'Cosmographia' (1482), based on Ptolemy’s 'Geographia', one of the foundational pieces of Early Modern cartography. It is a powerful demonstration of how surviving geographical knowledge from the classical era formed the basis of European exploration in the Early Modern world.

This is the second edition of the 'Ulm Ptolemy', issued by the Venetian publisher Justus de Albano who acquired Holl’s materials following his declared bankruptcy in 1484. He then commissioned Johann Reger to create new maps to reissue Holl’s 'Cosmographia' in 1486, using more economical means of colouring rather than the extravagant decoration, such as the use of the ultramarine blue made using lapis lazuli that had put Holl out of business.

This early world map is often referred to as the ‘Ulm Ptolemy’. It was originally published in Lienhart Holl’s atlas 'Cosmographia' (1482), a new edition of Claudius Ptolemy’s 'Geographia', one of the foundational pieces of Early Modern cartography. It is a powerful demonstration of how surviving geographical knowledge from the classical era formed the basis of European exploration in the Early Modern world.

Versions of this map were reissued by the printer Johann Reger who economised by using colour wash rather than expensive pigments, like lapis lazuli for rich blues, as Holl had done in his first edition. What was presumably originally a bluish-purple colour, has desaturated and turned to brown over five hundred years. Another interesting alteration is that the Tropic of Capricorn, which had been correctly named in the first edition, is now incorrectly labelled Tropic of Cancer.

Reger’s Reissue of the Ulm Ptolemy World Map