Description:
An original post incunable leaf with splendid woodcut headers and initials from the gazetteer of a French edition of the "Geographica".The most popular geographical work to be printed from movable type in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries was Ptolemy's Geographica or Cosmography. Originally compiled by the Alexandrian geographer, astronomer, and mathematician Claudius Ptolemy in the second century A.D., it was translated from Greek into Latin in Florence, Italy about 1410. Ptolemy lived from approximately 90 to 170 AD and worked in the library at Alexandria from 127 to 150 AD.
Verso: A leaf from Book 8 with a woodcut page header which depicts an angel supporting a scroll bearing Ptolemy's name and two scholars at either end with dividers and a rule. One 7-line woodcut initial "E" with an elaborate internal foliate design. Printed on laid paper in a roman typeface, paginated 148, marginal notes in an italic font.
Recto: As Verso, with three four-line woodcut initials and a slightly different… Read More