File:Batauorum.jpg

English: Cosmography, by Ptolemy; Latin translation by Jacopo d'Angelo; edited by Nicolaus Germanus. The first edition of Ptolemy printed in Germany and the first edition in which woodcut maps appear.

Colophon: Clavdii Ptolomei viri Alexandrini Cosmographie octavvs et vltimvs liber explicit opvs Donni Nicolai Germani secvndvm Ptolomevm finit. Anno M CCCC LXXXII. Avgvsti vero Kalendas. XVII. Imprssvm [sic] Vlme per ingeniosvm virvm Leonardvm Hol prefati oppidi civis

Woodcuts: [4] diagrams, initials, [32] maps

The maps, double, except for the last, are on separate sheets, most of them with a descriptive text printed on the back within woodcut borders; these texts are known in several variants

"Maps ... redrawn, corrected and improved ... by Nicolaus Donis [i.e. Nicolaus Germanus] ... [who] also added the five modern maps, one of which contains the first printed representation of Greenland, laid down as a peninsula of northern Europe under the name of Engronelant."--Sabin, 66472

At the top of the first map is a woodcut inscription: Insculptum est per Iohanne[m] Schnitzer de Arm[ss]heim

"This version of Ptolemy's Cosmographia was the first to include the accompanying text on the verso of the map concerned ... Since the map sheets appear to have been gathered up for binding in a random manner, the setting of the text cannot be used for establishing a chronological sequence of copies ..."--Campbell, Earliest printed maps, p. 136.