INSIA TERCERA NUOVA TAVOLA

£495

Superb map of the Java, Sumatra Indo Chine etc, from the first edition of Geographia di Claudio Tolomeo by Girolamo Ruscelli published in Venice in 1561

Latin text

A feature of this first state is that some maps haven’t the platemark at top because two maps were engraved on the same plate and the resulting sheet halved. Ruscelli’s Atlas is an expanded edition of Gastaldi’s Atlas of 1548, which has been called the most comprehensive atlas produced between Martin Waldseemller’s Geographiae of 1513, and the Abraham Ortelius Theatrum of 1570.

Gastaldi’s maps were beautifully engraved on copper, marking a turning point in the history of cartography. From then on the majority of cartographic works used this medium. As it was a harder material than wood it gave the engraver the ability to render more detail. Gastaldi sought the most up-to-date geographical information available, and [he] became one of the greatest cartographers of the sixteenth century.

Good strong impression,

Very good condition

code : M4748

Cartographer : RUSCELLI Girolamo

Date : 1561

Size : 19*26 cms

availability : Available

Price : £495

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Girolamo Ruscelli (1500s-1566) was an Italian polymath, humanist, editor, and cartographer active in Venice during the early 16th century. Ruscelli is best known for his important revision of Ptolemy's Geographia, which was published post humously in 1574. It is generally assumed that Alexius Pedemontanus was a pseudonym of Girolamo Ruscelli. In a later work, Ruscelli reported that the Secreti contained the experimental results of an ‘Academy of Secrets’ that he and a group of humanists and noblemen founded in Naples in the 1540s. Ruscelli’s academy is the first recorded example of an experimental scientific society. The academy was later imitated by Giambattista Della Porta, who founded an ‘Accademia dei Secreti’ in Naples in the 1560s.