Sales catalogue 491: Maggs Bros

Date:
1927
Reference:
WA/HMM/CM/Sal/13/50
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Sales catalogue 491: Maggs Bros. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Danse TIDY. [2] MELA (Pomponius). Pomponii Mellae Cosmo- graphi Geographia: Prisciani quoque ex Dionysio Thessaloni- censi de Situ Orbis interpretatio. With the woodcut map of the world. Title printed in red and black, and with several ornamental woodcut initial letters. 4t. Half bound. Venice, Erhard Ratdolt, 18th July, 1482. (SEE Intusrration, Pirate No. I). £105 Hain *11019. Proctor 4385. Hssling 274. Redgrave 28. British Museum Catalogue, Vol. V, p. 286. A few very slight wormholes. 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 the 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. As in the Salamanca 1498 edition, the Indian Ocean is shewn land-locked on the South by the Southern Continent, which joins up with Africa and Eastern Asia. Ceylon, also, is given as an island, and not, as was thought probable by Mela in A.D. 50, as a promontory of the Southern Continent. See also footnote to the 1478 edition. 1495 A.D. [3] MELA (Pomponius). Cosmographia seu de situ orbis. Printed in Roman Letter, with 27 lines and heading to a full-page, and with various woodcut initial letters. Small 4to. Half vellum. (Venice, Christophorus de Pensis, circa 1495). £18 18s Hain #11013. Proctor 5259. Brit. Mus. Cat., Vol. V, p. 476. This edition was edited by Hermolaus Barbarus.
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