PTOLEMAIC MAPS Original reproductions

Tables of this publishing project reproduce some of the 27 extraordinarily miniated maps of the Latin manuscript of Ptolemys Cosmographia, as kept in Naples Vittorio Emanuele III National Library. Ptolemys work who may be considered the last great geographer of the classical world was written in II century after Christ at the time of the Antonines and was considered throughout the classical age and over the middle ages the summa of the geographical knowledge of the ancient times. After Ptolemy the age of scientifically approached geographical researches was over. His work is therefore regarded as the climax of the Greek thought about the representation of known lands. The authoritativeness of the Ptolemaic cartography, overcome by the discoveries of great navigators, was definitely overtaken by the modern geographical approach of Abraham Ortelius in the sixteenth century. The Geographia has been handed down by medieval transcriptions. The work consists of a textual part 8 books through which the Alexandrian scholars geographical theories are set forth and a rich cartographic section - 27 maps made in some particular codes, 64 in others of extraordinary value for historical geography, as being the only specimen of the genre being made up of a grid and a map projection thus anticipating modern cartographic techniques. Rediscovered by the Western world in the humanistic period, Ptolemys work was known by princes, bibliophiles and scholars wishing to own miniated copies of a work which appeared to be the first atlas made up of uniform tables. The elegant code exhibited in the National Gallery of Arts in Washington on the occasion of the solemn celebration of the five centuries of the discovery of the new continent and more recently at the National Museum of Western Art in Tokyo on occasion of the exhibition dedicated to Italian Renaissance appears to be one of the most carefully edited both from a graphic and a decorative point of view. The textual part, in its Latin translation edited by Angelo Antonio Scarperia, was copied, in two columns, in the elegant humanistic style of the second half of the XVth Century. The text is followed by 27 miniated maps- a planisphere, ten maps dedicated to Europe, four to Africa, twelve to Asia which represent the only example of this genre in ancient times and which has influenced geographical knowledge of western and eastern peoples for more than fifteen centuries, till Colombuss days, who reportedly owned a copy of Geographia published in Rome in 1478. All maps are preceded by a brief presentation; drawn in conical projection, they are bordered by a double frame: a golden leaf external frame decorated with red, brown and gold motifs and a pink internal one indicating geographical co-ordinates. Seas, rivers and lakes are coloured in cobalt blue; the deep sienna colour used for the orography tends to become dimmer with the altitude going up till getting dark brown; plains are ivory coloured as the parchment; forests are drawn with olive green spots; towns are circled in gold.
The manuscript belonged to the rich Biblioteca Farnese inherited by Charles of Bourbon who became king of the Reign of Naples in 1734. All volumes of the precious and extraordinarily rich collection, gathered by Alessandro Farnese, the future Pope Paul III, and by his nephiews, cardinals Alessandro and Ranuccio, were given by Charles of Bourbon, together with all the other Farnese collections, to the city of Naples when the monarch came back to his homeland to become king of Spain.

Original reproductions limited to 499 copies certified by Naples National Library and manufactured in Amalfi Amatruda handmade p