Estate / Collection: An Upper East Side Map Collector

[MAP - ASIA MINOR]

PTOLEMEUS, CLAUDIUS; LORENZ FRIES; and MICHAEL VILLANOVANUS, known as SERVETUS. Tabula I Asiae. [Lyon: Melchior and Gaspar Trechsel, 1535]. Hand-colored woodcut map to recto, text with hand-colored woodcut borders and initials to verso. The sheet measures 16 x 20 3/4 inches. Framed. Central fold, a few tiny nicks along edges, very faint spotting and light toning to margins, some toning along tab at verso, an attractive example.

A rare and early map of Asia Minor showing Turkey and part of Cyprus from the 1535 Lyon edition of Ptolemy's atlas, titled Claudii Ptolemaei Alexandrini Geographicae enarrationis libri octo. This woodcut map, cut by Lorenz Fries, was first published in Strasbourg by Johannes Gruninger in 1522, and again in 1525. Fries' maps were based on Martin Waldseemuller's 1513 edition of Ptolemy, but are reduced in size and include added text. Fries woodcuts then passed to the Lyon-based publishers Melchior and Gaspar Trechsel who issued editions of the atlas in 1535 and 1541. The woodcut borders and ornaments are said to be the work of Hans Holbein and Graf of Basel. The text on the verso is by the theologian, physician, and cartographer Michael Villanovanus, also known as Servetus, who was burnt alive on a pyre of his books, including copies of this atlas, for heresy in 1553.