MERCATOR’S PTOLEMAIC AND ITALIAN ATLAS IN BOARDS WITH OUTSTANDING

MERCATOR’S PTOLEMAIC AND ITALIAN ATLAS IN BOARDS WITH OUTSTANDING CONTEMPORARY COLOR PTOLEMY, ed. Gerardus Mercator (1512–1594). Ptolemy, ed. Gerardus Mercator. Cl. Ptolemaei Alexandrini, geographiae libri octo, recogniti iam et diligenter emendati cum tabilis geographicis ad mentem auctoris restitutis ac emendatis, per Gerardum Mercatorem, Illustriß. Ducis Cliuensis etc. Cosmographum. Cologne: Gottfried von Kempen, 1584. Second edition. bound with Gerardus Mercator. Italiae, Sclavoniae et Græciæ tabulę geographicę, Per Gerardum Mercatorem Illustrußimi Ducis Julię, Cliuię, &c. Cosmographum Duysburgi editæ. [Duisburg: Mercator, 1589.] First edition. Here is what AI says it’s worth: $52,955. Cost: Bonham’s New York, 13 Dec 2022 Lot 27 - $19,125. Folio in 6s and 2s (15 ½” x 10 ½”, 395mm x 268mm): π2 Α-L6 M4(–M4 blank) (?)4 a-b6 c4(–c4 blank) 2A-E2 G-L2 2K2 M2 O2 N2 2O2 P-Bb2, π2 2-82 13-222 χ2 †-†††2 [$4 signed in 6s, $1 signed in 2s; –(?)1; +†2, ††2; M1 signed “M2”, Z1 signed “Zz”]. 184 leaves (Geographia: 142, Italia: 42): [4] (Geographia engraved title, blank, 2pp. dedication to Ortelius) 1-106 289-90 [68] (29pp. index, tabulator, fly-title to the plates, imprimatur, dedication to Duke Wilhelm of Jülich-Cleves-Berg, 4pp. preface, woodcut diagram of the zodiac, 30pp. index) [104] (26 double-page engraved maps with letterpress recto to the first leaf of each, and sometimes to the verso of the second leaf), [4] (title, blank, dedication to Ferdinando I de’ Medici, to the reader) [68] (17 double-page engraved maps with letterpress recto to the first leaf of each) [12] (11pp. index, blank). [=iv, 108, lxviii, 104; iv, 68, xii] With two hand-colored engraved title-pages and 43 (Geographia: 26 of 28, Italia: 17 of 22) double-page hand-colored engraved maps integral with the text, Italia extra-illustrated with a double-page hand-colored engraved map “Europa ad magnae Europae Gerardi Mercatoris P. imitationem Rumoldi Mercatoris” (Duisberg, ca. 1595; the first state, without text verso). Bound in later (XVIIIc?) paste-paper-covered boards backed in vellum (re-backed, with the original back-strip laid down). Ink manuscript title to the front cover (ligatured): “librx eñrmi/ ~PTLs~” with the Trisagion (hymn) in Greek in four lines above.[1] On the spine, the author, title and date in ink manuscript (“~MERCA~/~TOREM~/ ~/ ORVIS[sic]/ ~TERRA~/RUM./ A[NN]O/ 1584”). All edges of the text-block speckled blue. Re-backed, with the original back-strip laid down. Rubbed and worn, with some soiling. Mild tanning, in some places moderate, with the odd spot of soiling or foxing. Lacking 2 maps (one single: Egypt, one double-page: North Africa) in the Geographia and 5 maps (Italy, Tuscany, Ancona, Lazio, Abruzzo) in the Italia; extra-illustrated with a 1595 Rumold Mercator map of Europe. Pigment oxidation throughout, with resultant cracking at the spine of quire N (Africae Tabula IIII). Scattered peripheral tears. Worming to the lower margin of the first three and final three leaves, not affecting the text. The free edges of the final two leaves extended. A worn graphite gift inscription to the recto of the front free end-paper (“…Jerusaleme…1793”), seemingly repeated in ink along the verso of the same leaf: “Gũannij del: …. … m: m: hos jerusalê anni 1796”. Oval blind-stamp to a paster paper label at the head of the title-leaf, repeated in ink verso. Claudius Ptolemaeus (usually anglicized to Ptolemy) was a second-century philosopher living in Roman Alexandria in Egypt. In the Greek tradition (Ptolemy wrote in Greek, which was the administrative language of the Roman Empire in the Eastern Mediterranean), philosophy — the love of wisdom — bridged what we now divide into the humanities and the sciences; he was a mathematician, natural scientist and geographer-astronomer. No manuscripts of the Γεωγραφικὴ Ὑφήγησις (Geographical Guidance; in Latin this is usually rendered Geographicae enarrationis libri octo or “eight books of geographical explanation”) survive from before the XIIIc, but some XIIIc examples survive with maps that bear some relation to those Ptolemy himself drew. Thus, with the exception of some excavated carved maps, Ptolemy is the source for ancient cartography as well as its culmination. In the XVc, the Geographia was the core of ancient knowledge of the world, extending from the Canary Islands in the West to China in the East (though not quite to the Pacific), Scandinavia in the North and beyond the Horn of Africa to the South. It was crucial to explorers; Columbus expected to find the East Indies because of Ptolemy’s calculations and assertions about longitude. As the world expanded beyond its ancient bounds, discoveries were integrated into the Ptolemaic maps, distinct with their trapezoidal frames. Gerardus Mercator (1512–1594) pioneered the projection that bears his name — based on a cylinder, allowing North and South always to be up and down, but inflates size with distance from the Equator — and established the recognizable modern world map. Called by Ortelius (to whom the Geographia is dedicated) the modern Ptolemy, he edited the text of the Geographia in 1576, and was able to “correct” maps — i.e., to present a Ptolemaic rather than a modern conception of the three continents (Europe, Africa, Asia) — to conform to the revised text. There is a particularly strong emphasis on the (ancient) mapping of Asia. The present example has unusually rich color, which has oxidized over the centuries to tan the cellulose of the paper, while keeping the vibrant oranges intact. Bound with the Geographia is the (eventual) fifth part of Mercator’s Atlas — the first book so-called (and meaning, roughly, “a book of maps published at the same size”), published in six parts from 1585 to 1595 — published at Duisburg in 1589: the “tabulae geographicae” (geographic images) of Italy, “Sclavonia” (the lands of the (South) Slavs, i.e., modern Bosnia, Herzegovina, Croatia, Serbia, Slovenia etc.) and Greece. Although a “custom” combination of works, it’s not uncommon to find individual parts of the eventual Atlas combined with Mercator’s Ptolemy. It speaks, seemingly, to a particularly south-eastern European purchaser. Although the gift inscriptions have been obliterated and the blind-stamp to the title page flattened, it seems fairly clear that the volume was in Jerusalem at the end of the XVIIIc (1793–1796), perhaps as a diplomatic gift (from Giovanni?), or associated in some way with the Knights Hospitaller, i.e., the Knight of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem. The Ptolemaic world-view had of course long been corrected by modern exploration, but the presentation of the volume at the center of the Ptolemaic world is poetic, and indicates an antiquarian spirit. The highly ligatured writing on both the front cover and the spine (could the title be expanded to “libri enarrationis Ptolemaeus,” i.e., Ptolemy: books of description (of geography)?) points to an academic owner. The Trisagion hymn above the front title certainly points to the eastern Mediterranean and the Eastern Rite; the peculiarities of spelling as well as versification suggest an acoustic rather than a literary familiarity with Greek. Geographia: VD-16 P 5219; Italia: Van der Krogt/Koeman 1:002A. [1] In conventional orthography: Ἅγιος ὁ Θεός, Ἅγιος ἰσχυρός, Ἅγιος ἀθάνατος, ἐλέησον ἡμᾶς. [ἀμήν.]

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