The first atlas wholly printed in colours, incorporating the first printed map to indicate Japan
Liber geographiae
cum tabulis et universali figura et cum additione locorum quae a recentiorbus reperta sunt.
Venice,
Jacobus Pentius de Lencho,
1511.
Folio atlas (440 by 300mm), title in red, poem on verso printed in red and black, 6pp. preliminary text printed in red and black, 115pp. text printed in red and black with four woodcut and letterpress diagrammatic illustrations, 28 woodcut maps printed in red and black (each double-page with all but the final world map printed in red and black in two sections on facing pages), remnants of collector's stamp to title, contemporary limp vellum, remnants of old ties, title in manuscript to spine.
Collation: [4]; A8, B-H6, I8, 28 maps.
Collation: [4]; A8, B-H6, I8, 28 maps.
1050
notes:
A very fine example of this Venetian editon of Ptolemy's Geographia. This is the first illustrated edition of Ptolemy's work in which an attempt was made to update the information given on the maps. It is also one of the earliest examples of two-colour printing in cartography with the major regional names printed in red, others in black, using inset type. The large cordiform world map is the earliest of its kind, and this is only the second Ptolemaic world map to show Ameri...
bibliography:
Shirley, 'Mapping of the World', 32; Nordenskiöld Collection 2:204; Phillips, Atlases 358; Sabin 66477; Sander 5979.
provenance:
“A complete bijou of a map, not less useful than elegant”
A map of Japan from Jean Migeon’s ‘Nouvel Atlas Illustre Geographie Universelle’
The most up-to-date sea atlas of the second half of the seventeenth century
Western approaches to the Torres Strait, Australia
Rare Roger Rea edition of Speed’s map of Lancashire
De Jode’s rare map of west Asia
“Freedom, Fraternity, Federation”
Printing on ice
Map of Edo
An early bird’s-eye view of Sydney
A beautiful pictorial map of Kyoto and surrounding hills
A Rare Sly Moveable
The Forest of Dean by a Deputy Gaveller
Reduction of Baugh’s large-scale map of Shropshire
Bordone’s Isolario in contemporary binding
The first map to show Korea as a peninsula, the only known example of this issue
A striking map of India from the 1482 Ulm Ptolemy 





