Beschreibung:

BARTOLOMEO dalli sonetti da Venezia (fl. 2nd half 15th century). Isolario . [Venice: Guglielmo Anima Mia da Trino, c. 1485-86].
BARTOLOMEO dalli sonetti da Venezia (fl. 2nd half 15th century). Isolario . [Venice: Guglielmo Anima Mia da Trino, c. 1485-86]. Median half-sheet 4 o (233 x 168mm), collation: [1 1 2 2 8 3 6 4 1 0 5 6 6 8 7 6 ] (1/1r-1/3r verse dedication to Doge Giovanni Mocenigo, the 3-line heading disguising his name in a number-acrostic, and introductory verse, 1/3v incipit: S. per linsula de cerigo / Questa insula mia quindece lontana , 7/6r map of Cyprus, 7/6v blank). 56 leaves, varying numbers of lines; second state of pages 1/12v, 2/3v and 3/4v with sonnets added in a separate operation through the press. Gothic type 1:79 A . 49 WOODCUT MAP CHARTS of the Greek islands, two double-page (Crete and Euboea), the others full-page. (Quires misbound in the following order: 1, 6, 4, 5, 2, 3, 7; 5 maps shaved, small marginal repair and worming in first leaf affecting a few letters, short clean tear in 4/6, final leaf almost detached, minor stains in places.) 16th- or 17th-century Italian limp vellum binding, gilt calf longitudinal lettering-piece on spine. Provenance : A. Massa of Salerno (17th-century ex-libris inscriptions, monograms, his inscription of the title on front flyleaf: Isolario di Bartolomeo Veneto ) -- [Henry] Chapman, London antiquarian bookseller (price inscription: -7-6 Chapman 1782 ) -- Henry Collingwood (engraved armorial bookplate on vellum c. 1800) -- Sold at Christie's, 27th February 1974, lot 116, to Martin Breslauer Ltd, from whom it was acquired by the present owner. FIRST EDITION OF THE FIRST PRINTED MARITIME ATLAS, the only incunable illustrated with nautical charts. It and the 1472 Verona Valturius are the two outstanding technical illustrated books of the Italian Renaissance. The author, about whom nothing else is known, mentions in the dedicatory verse that he collected his observations as a seaman, but while the verse is original the decorative charts of the Aegean archipelago clearly derive from the manuscript tradition of Cristoforo Buondelmonti's portolan, Liber insularum (see previous lot). The map of Mount Athos is the earliest print of the monasteries there; that of Patmos shows the abbey church of St. John the Divine (conflated by Bartolomeo with the Evangelist) and the cave of the Apocalypse, the view of Caloiero shows the huge crane for lifting boats up the sheer cliff, and the added verse on Rhodes ends with the Colossus ("un idol grande"). A CRISP, UNPRESSED COPY, preserving the deep impressions of type and woodblocks, finer than the Horblit-Wardington, Beckford-Friedlaender, Bodmer-Schäfer and Phillipps copies or any others that have appeared at auction in the last century. HCR 2538=H 14890; BMC V, 410; Goff B-183; CIBN B-119; IGI (and Suppl.) 1278; C.F. Bühler, 'Variants in the first atlas of the Mediterranean', Gutenberg Jahrbuch 1957, pp. 94-97; Bartolommeo dalli Sonetti, Isolario, Venice 1485, with an introduction by F.R. Goff (Theatrum Orbis Terrarum facsimile VI, Amsterdam 1972); T. Campbell, The earliest printed maps (London 1987) 16-64; The World Encompassed 82; Essling 1316; Sander 799.