(Carta del Mondo)

Untitled world map from the Rome Ptolemy. 

Two joined sheets, mounted on old paper; Etching with engraving, circa 1478, printed on contemporary paper with unidentified watermark, in perfect conditions.

A foundation cartographic document of the Renaissance: the first acquirable, printed world map that attempted a realistic geographic depiction of the earth. In the realm of printed world maps, it was preceded only by the essentially unacquirable map from the 1475 Rudimentum Novitiorum, itself a crude, medieval construction, and the 1472 Isidorus T-O map, which is no more than a diagram. (The world map from the 1477 Bologna edition of Ptolemy, which is discussed below, can also be considered unacquirable).

The edition of the Rome Ptolemy appeared in 1478, 1490, 1507, and 1508. The first edition with the title  Claudii Ptholomei Alexandrini Philosophi Cosmographia. [Colophon:] Nvmeros Matematicos Inexplicabile Ferme Terre Astrorvmqve Opvs Clavdii Ptolemaei Alexandrini Philosophi Geographiam Arnoldvs Bvckinck e Germania Rome Tabvlis Aeneis In Pictvris Formatam Impressit. Sempiterno Ingenii Artificiiqve Monvmento. Anno/ Dominici Natalis . M.CCCC. LXXVIII VI Idvs Octobris. Sedente Sixto IIII Pont. Max . Anno Eivs VIII.

The Rome edition has been widely judged by authorities to be the most accomplished of all the early Ptolemaic world maps. In fact, most scholars feel that in regard to both geographic sophistication and quality of design and printing, the Rome edition was not exceeded until Mercator’s definitive edition, published much later, in 1578.

Also, among the early editions of Ptolemy, only the Rome has a documented and significant connection to Columbus. He is known to have owned an annotated copy of the 1478 Ptolemy atlas, and Ptolemy’s considerable underestimation of the earth’s circumference, which is visually expressed on this map, supported Columbus’s argument that one could reach the East Indies with relative ease by sailing west. The Rome edition of Ptolemy was also an important landmark in the history of printing.

One of its printer/publishers, Conrad Sweynheym, set up the first press in Italy in 1464. (Sweynheym died in 1477, and the work was published under the imprint of his partner, Arnold Buckinck.) It is believed that work on the project began in 1474 or even earlier, so that the plates were most likely prepared prior to those of the 1477 Bologna edition, which is considered the earliest printed Ptolemy by virtue of publication date alone. Moreover, the Rome edition is regarded as the vastly superior work. Skelton suggests that its superiority as a printed object was due to the greater skills of the printers. He points out that printing from a copperplate as opposed to from movable type was still a new process at the time in Italy, and that Sweynheym was one of the few who had mastered it. Conrad Swenheym (Mainz), is widely thought to have been present at the birth of printing while an apprentice of Johann Guttenberg.

After Mainz was sacked in 1462, Swenheym fled south to Italy and arrived at the Benedictine Monastery of Subiaco, at the suggestion of the great humanist and cartographer Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa. In 1464-5, Swenheyn and Arnold Pannartz introduced the first printing press to Italy. Over the next few years, Pope Paul II was to become so enthusiastic about the new medium that he liquidated scriptoria and commissioned several newly established printers to publish vast quantities of religious and humanist texts. In 1467, Swenheym and Pannartz moved to Rome under the Pope's patronage where they printed over fifty books from their press at the Massimi Palace. Unfortunately, when the pope died in 1471, the new pontiff Sixtus IV disavowed the numerous unpaid orders of his predecessor.

It is not possible to know with certainty to which of the editions of Ptolemy of Rome this copy belongs, however the freshness of the sign and the quality of the impression suggest a retouched plate and therefore probably the edition of 1490. Magnificent example of this very important cartographic document, considered as the first realistic representation of the world.