Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Sales catalogue 519: Maggs Bros. Source: Wellcome Collection.
18/292 page 10
![1482 A.D. [8] [PRESTER JOHN], JOANNES PRESBY TER. De ritu et moribus Indorum. Bold semi-Gothic Letter, 31 long lines to a full page, first page within a woodcut border of foliage and animals. With a fine initial P containing the figure of Prester John wearing a head-covering with one tiara and holding a patriarchal cross. Small 4to, vellum. (Strassburg, H. Knoblochtzer, about 1482). (Sez Intusrration, Prat No. IV). £150 Possibly the first Latin edition. Hain Copinger 9429. Proctor 386 (not in Bodleian), British Museum Cata- logue of Incunabula, Vol. I, p. 90. Fairfax Murray, Catalogue of Early German Books, Vol. I, pp. 398-9. This tract pretends to be a letter to Manuel I Commenus (1143-80), Emperor of Constantinople, from the fabulous Christian ruler of a wonderful Empire which extended over the three Indies, (including that further India where laid the body of S. Thomas), to the rising of the sun, and back again to the ruins of Babylon and the Tower of Babel. The letter describes the wonders of the country, the magnifi- cence of Prester John’s Court, etc. ‘“The exact date of this extraordinary epistle cannot be fixed with any cer- tainty, but it certainly appeared before 1241, the date of the conclusion of the Chronicle of Albericus Trium Fontium.’’—Baring Gould. 1482 A.D. [9] POMPONIUS MELA. Cosmographia sive De situ Orbis. Unacum Prisciani ex Dionysio Thessalonicensi de situ Orbis interpretatione. Black Letter, 31 long lines to a full page. Rubric on first half of text pane in red. With very interesting woodcut map of the World on first eaf verso, with 2 large and 5 smaller woodcut ornamental capitals. 4to, half bound. Venice, Erhard Ratdolt, 18th July, 1482. (Sze Intusrration, Prarz No. V). £105 Hain *11019. Proctor 43885. LHssling 274. Redgrave 28. British Museum Catalogue, Vol. V, p. 286. Wormbholes in lower margin affecting the map, a few stains. A FINE COPY OF A WORK VALUABLE FOR THE EARLY HISTORY OF GEoGRAPHY. ‘ In this edition by the use of smaller gothic types and broader type-page, Ratdolt was able to add the treatise of Dionysius to that of Mela within the same number of leaves as he had used for the Mela alone in 1478. ‘The text is preceded by a woodcut map of the world, displayed as if hung on a wall of a room of which four of the ornamental pillars and part of the ceiling are shown. Above the map is a blank shield, and above this, touching the ceiling, floral festoons. Along the wall, divided by the shield, is the inscription: ‘‘ Novellae etati ad geographie umiculatos calles humano viro necessarios flores aspirati votu benemerenti ponit.’ ”’ —Catalogue of C. W. Dyson Perrins’ Collection.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b31664374_0018.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
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