Beschreibung:

PTOLEMAEUS, Claudius (c.100-c.178). Geographicae enarrationis, Edited by Michael Servetus (1509/11-1553). Vienne: Gaspar Trechsel for Hugues de La Porte at Lyons, 1541. The second of two Lyons editions by the Spanish theologian and scientist, Servetus , also known as Villanovanus. The text comprises the Latin translation by Willibald Pirckheimer (1470-1530) and an index. In his first edition of 1535 Servetus exposed numerous errors in the translation, consulting some eighty works of reference to do so, but his second edition required only minor changes. The 50 maps derive from the Waldseemüller series and are printed from the blocks used in Lorenz Fries's edition printed by Gruninger in 1522. They were used again in Gruninger's 1525 Strasbourg edition, as well as the first Trechsel/Servetus edition of 1535. Of the 50 maps, 27 depict the ancient and 22 the modern world, with a further map of Lotharingia. Maps no. 28, 34, 49 and 50 concern America; the text on no. 28 verso is about the discoveries of Columbus. The final map 50 is dated 1522 and initialed L.F. (Lorenz Fries). The remarks about the barren state of the Holy Land, used against Servetus in his trial for heresy in 1553, are omitted in this edition, as are the ornamental borders to the descriptive texts on map versos. A large, fresh copy . Adams P-2226; Baudrier VII, 310 & XII, 256; Brunet IV, 955; DSB XII, p.323; JCB (3) I, 129; Karrow 28/G.3; NMM III(1),13; Nordenskiold II, 211; Phillips, Atlases 366; Sabin 66485; cf. Mortimer/Harvard French 450. Folio (420 x 290mm). Letterpress title with large woodcut printer's device, 49 double-page woodcut maps and one single-page woodcut map (number 47, printed on verso of number 46), 2 full-page woodcuts, including an armillary sphere with the twelve winds by Albrecht Dürer on l4v (occasional faint marginal dampstain, small marginal marginal wormtrack in first and final quires, quire h lightly browned). 16th-century limp vellum, spine lettered in ink (missing fore-edge ties, lightly soiled); modern morocco-backed box. Provenance : Celio Benci (17th-century inscription on title) – 17th-century allegorical and architectural drawings, possibly connected with sun dialling, in brown ink-and-wash on flyleaf.