Universalior Cogniti Orbis Tabula Ex Recentibus Confecta Obsevationibus

RUYSCH, Johannes

Edité par Rome, 1507

A propos de cet article

410 x 550 mm., in two sheets joined as issued, with two tears in the right side lower margin, both about 9 cms., professionally repaired, otherwise in good condition with margins all round. STATE 1-B, ONE OF ONLY THREE EXAMPLES THAT MCGUIRK RECORDS. HE ONLY CITES THREE OF STATE 1-A. AN EXTENSIVE EXAMINATION OF RECORDS SHOWS THAT NO OTHER EARLY STATE HAS APPEARED ON THE MARKET SINCE 1986. THE 'FIRST PUBLISHED MAP MADE BY AN ACTUAL EXPLORER OF THE NEW WORLD' and the FIRST AVAILABLE MAP TO ILLUSTRATE AMERICA. This is only pre-dated by a handful of manuscript portolan maps and the printed map by Giovanni Matteo Contarini and Francesco Rosselli of 1506, of which only one example survives (British Library). Martin Waldseemuller's legendary wall map of 1507 at the Library of Congress might also pre-date it.This map by Johannes Ruysch uses the same fan-shaped conical projection as the Contariniâ "Rosselli. However, where the former draws on a largely Ptolemaic format, Ruysch incorporates extensive current knowledge drawn from Portuguese, Spanish and English sources. Some of this it appears 'is the first-hand knowledge of Ruysch himself who, it is said in the commentary that accompanies the map in the following edition of 1508, 'has navigated from the southern part of England to 53o north latitude, and that he has sailed on the latter parallel as far as the eastern coasts [of America]' (Burden). Thus, it may be said that this is the FIRST PRINTED MAP OF AMERICA BY SOMEONE WITH FIRST HAND KNOWLEDGE. Johannes Ruysch (c.1470-1533) is thought to have accompanied Sebastian Cabot on his 1497 voyage to Newfoundland. He was born in Utrecht, Netherlands, and after his travels he lived in Germany and then Italy. He became a lay priest and settled in Rome. He was an accomplished astronomer and cosmographer. With the patronage of Pope Julius II, Ruysch is believed to have assisted Raphael in painting the 'Astronomia' and other frescoes in the Stanza della segnatura in the Vatican (1509-10). A new edition of the 1490 Rome 'Geographia' by Ptolemy was planned for 1507. It was revised and edited by Marcus Beneventanus and Joannes Cota of Verona. The printer was Bernardinus Venetus de Vitalibus and publisher Evangelista Tosinus, a French publisher who had settled in Rome. For this, six new modern maps were published. The world map was intended to be a seventh but was not ready in time. Thacher wrote that 'There is no map of the New World found in the examples bearing the date of 1507 on the title. That it was intended that there should be such a map is evident from the permission or exclusive permit to sell granted to the publisher Tosinus by Pope Julius II, and which permission is granted as a recompense for the expense Tosinus was under in securing a map of the new regions. This permission is dated July 28, 1506 â ¦ In the Rome printing office, the map was not yet ready when the first copies were printed. Shortly after, with the title page simply bearing the date 1508, but with the colophon still dated September 8, 1507, copies were issued announcing that Marcus Beneventanus had prepared a description of the New World and of the ocean pathway from Lisbon to the Indian Ocean, and that accompanying the description was a map of the entire world by Johannes Ruysch, a German'. In the text Beneventanus described Ruysch as 'an exact and painstaking geographer'.We do now know that the map does appear in a very few examples, clearly late issues, of the 1507 edition. The delay was undoubtedly due to the efforts made to make it accurate for there are several corrections made to the plates both before and after first printing. Donald McGuirk studied these various states in the 1980s which were complicated by the fact that each half was printed from a different copper plate. Earlier carto-bibliographers recorded 5 states but as each plate exists in 3 states, a possible total of 9 versions exist. McGuirk's census of 47 maps in institutions and 17 maps in private.

N° de réf. du vendeur 10386

Détails bibliographiques

• Titre: Universalior Cogniti Orbis Tabula Ex Recentibus Confecta Obsevationibus
• Éditeur: Rome
• Date de parution: 1507
• Reliure: No binding
• Édition: Edition originale
• État de l'article: Very Good
• Catalogues du vendeur:
  • World & Celestial