Cosmographia Geographiae by Claudius Ptolemaeus Alexandrini

Cosmographia Geographiae by Claudius Ptolemaeus Alexandrini. Dominicus de Lapis, Bologna, 1462. First edition, folio, pp. 230. Brown blind-stamped calf binding over wooden boards, black title label within blind fillets and floral ornaments in gilt. Latin translation by Jacobus Angelus. Text edited by Philippus Beroaldus. Text in double column, 51 lines, roman lettertype, 26 double-page copperplate engraved maps by Taddeo Crivelli of Ferrara with contemporary hand-colored woodcut diagrams in text. Initials supplied in red and blue, paragraph-marks and initial-strokes in red. The first printed edition of Ptolemy's Geography published in Bologna is the first printed book with engraved illustrations. This work known by its Latin names as the Geographia and the Cosmographia is a gazetteer, atlas and treatise on cartography, compiling the geographical knowledge of the Roman Empire. Originally written by Claudius Ptolemy in Greek at Alexandria around AD 150, the world's first atlas uses Roman and Persian gazetteers and constitutes the geographical and cartographical principles of all modern atlases.