Original antique map titled 'Tab XII Asiae Taprobanam (..)'. For this map of Toprobana (Sri Lanka), Ptolemy drew on the accounts of travelers and sailors and though the information was secondhand and often inaccurate, it represented the most advanced account of the world's geography at that time. This map depicts the island with the typical misconceptions of the period with the enlarged island straddling the Equator and nearly divided by a ridge of mountains. A small part of India is incorrectly shown in the northeast corner of the map and a spurious coastline labeled Gangem fills the upper right corner. The stipple engraved sea contains an oriental ship and two great sea monsters. Mercator originally published this map in his 1578 edition of Ptolemy's great Geography; this is from the last edition and two cracks in the plate at top and center are evident in this example. Although he is most renowned today for the projection he popularized and for first using the term Atlas for a collection of maps, he devoted much of his life to his Ptolemaic maps. The maps were beautifully engraved as nearly as possible to their original form and embellished with fine cartouches. This is the second state with an updated cartouche. Blank verso, published between 1695-1704. Originates from 'Tabulae Geographicae'.
Bartele Gallery. Original antique maps, sea charts, engravings and works on paper. This is a plain text rendering of a page that is otherwise built in the browser. The catalogue index is at https://www.bartele.net/catalogue and machine readable notes are at https://www.bartele.net/llms.txt.