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Article ID W0181

Title

no title

Description

Map shows the "old" world, it is based on Martin Waldseemuller’s Ptolemaic map of 1513. It has been reduced in size and been redrawn without text on reverse. Ptolemy edition by Trechsel with watermark. The [1535] Lyon edition by Melchior and Gaspar Treschel was burned by Calvin for alleged heresy and is therefore rare.

Year

ca. 1535

Artist

Ptolemy/ Fries (1490-1531)

Lorenz (Laurent) Fries was born in Alsace in 1490 or thereabouts, describing himself on one occasion as from Colmar, one of the towns of the region. He studied medicine at university, or rather at universities, as he seems to have had a peripatetic education, apparently spending time at the universities of Pavia, Piacenza, Montpellier and Vienna. Having successfully completed his education, Fries established himself as a physician, at a succession of places in the Alsace region, with a short spell in Switzerland, before settling in Strasbourg, in about 1519. By this time, he had established a reputation as a writer on medical topics, with several publications already to his credit. Indeed, it was thus that Fries met the Strasbourg printer and publisher Johann Grüninger, an associate of the St. Die group of scholars formed by, among others, Walter Lud, Martin Ringmann and Martin Waldseemuller. Gruninger was responsible for printing several of the maps prepared by Waldseemuller, and for supervising the cutting of the maps for the 1513 edition of Ptolemy, edited by the group. This meeting was to introduce a important digression into Fries' life, and for the next five years, from about 1520 to about 1525, he worked in some capacity as a cartographic editor with Gruninger, exploiting the corpus of material that Waldseemuller had created. Claudius Ptolemy ( arround 100- 160 a.C.) Geographia, gives a list of geographic coordinates of spherical longitude and latitude of almost ten thousand point locations on the earth surface, as they were known at his times. The list is organized in Tabulae which cor- respond to specific regions of the three known continents at that time, Africa, Asia and Europe. Research on Ptolemy’s Geographia has started at the University of Thessaloniki, Greece, in the eighties, focused mainly, but not exclusively, on data re- lated to territories which are now under the sovereignty of the modern Greek state. The World of Ptolemy is classified in Regions, since each Chapter is referred to one of them, giving by this way the concept of Atlas as it is understood today.

Historical Description

Popular science refers to the period from about the 15th to the 18th centuries. The era is considered to be in the early modern period and is primarily concerned with the knowledge of seafarers and explorers. The idea of the age of discoveries is shaped by seafaring and discoveries overseas. In terms of content, however, it also includes astronomy, which is associated with the names of Tycho Brahe, Nikolaus Kopernikus, Isaac Newton and Johannes Kepler, among others. Giordano Bruno and Galileo Galilei also belong to this group. Not only the seafarers with their discoveries, but also they brought about changes in the world view. Some motifs were religious, e.g. B. that Christianity should be spread in the New World (missionary). The great European powers also expected an expansion of their political sphere of influence. This is evident in the overseas colonies, including the Spaniards, Portuguese, English, Dutch and French. The Tordesillas Treaty of 1494 is an example of this. It regulated the distribution of the discovered countries between Portugal and Spain. Global exploration began with the Portuguese discoveries of the Atlantic archipelagos of Madeira and the Azores in 1419 and 1427, the African coast after 1434, and the sea route to India in 1498; and from the Crown of Castile (Spain) the transatlantic trips of Christopher Columbus to America between 1492 and 1502 and the first world tour in the years 1519–1522. These discoveries led to numerous naval expeditions across the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific Oceans, and land expeditions in America, Asia, Africa, and Australia that continued into the late 19th century, followed by exploration of the polar regions in the 20th century. European overseas exploration led to the rise of world trade and the European colonial empires, with contact between the Old World (Europe, Asia and Africa) and the New World (America and Australia) creating Colombian exchange, a wide range of plant transfers, animals, and food , human populations (including slaves), communicable diseases and culture between the Eastern and Western Hemisphere. The age of discovery and later exploration of Europe made it possible to map the world, which led to a new worldview and distant civilizations, but also to the spread of diseases that decimated populations that were not previously in contact with Eurasia and Africa, and to enslavement , Exploitation, military conquest and economic dominance of Europe and its colonies over indigenous people. It also allowed the expansion of Christianity.

Place of Publication Lyon
Dimensions (cm)29,5 x 45,35
ConditionPerfect condition
Coloringoriginal colored
TechniqueWoodcut

Reproduction:

1,125.00 €

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