Polonia et Hungaria Nvova Tavola

Engraved map of Poland, Hungary, the Slovakia, the Czech Republic and parts of the region bounded by the Black Sea in the east. Relief shown pictorially. // The first edition of Girolamo Ruscelli's translation of Claudius Ptolemy's Geographia, published in Italian. It was printed by Vincenzo Valgrisi in Venice, with the text translated from Greek by Ruscelli. The 64 double page copperplate maps were partly based on those of Jacopo Gastaldo in the edition of 1548, with descriptive text on recto of first leaf and verso of last leaf. 27 Ptolemy maps and 37 'modern' map, including 3 world maps, 6 maps of America (South America, Mexico with Florida, Brazil, east coast of North America, Haiti, Cuba), 27 European maps (including the North-Atlantic map with parts of Labrador), 9 maps of Africa and 19 maps of Asia. Maps showing settlements, landmarks, rivers, mountains, ports, forests, illustrations of wildlife,etc. Includes index. Relief shown pictorially. Bound in half leather marbled paper covered boards, with title Geografia di Tolomeo on spine. Claudius Ptolemy (90-168 CE) was a Roman geographer and mathematician living in Egypt, who compiled his knowledge and theories about the world's geography into one seminal work. Although his maps did not survive, his mathematical projections and location coordinates did. Girolamo Ruscelli (c. 1504-1566) was a Venetian editor, whose maps are primarily based on those by Jacopo Gastaldi (1548) but with many of his own additions and reproduced on a larger scale. Ruscelli introduces several important innovations in this volume through his 37 modern maps, which cover Europe, Africa, Asia and the New World. Ruscelli includes a double hemisphere world map, which was the first of its kind to be used in an atlas, and Carta Marina Nuova Tavola, a rare sea chart of the world.