The most popular geographical work to be printed from movable type in
the fifteenth century was Ptolemy's Geography 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. The map
of the world here reproduced, beautifully illuminated with twelve wind
heads, is one of thirty-two maps illustrating the edition of the
Cosmographia issued from the press of Lienhart Holle of Ulm, Germany,
on July 6, 1482. Holle's edition was the first to be printed north of
the Alps and the first to include maps printed from woodcuts. To
produce his printed edition, Holle used a manuscript copy prepared under
the direction of the Benedictine Monk known as Donnus Nicolaus
Germanus.
This world map
shows the state of European cartographic knowledge of
the world prior to Columbus' 1492 voyage. It reflects the Ptolemaic
world view. The old (or known) inhabited world oikoumene is depicted as
extending 180 degrees east and west, but in reality it covers only 105
degrees of longitude. This elongation, greatly shortening the unknown
portion of the earth, was to influence navigators such as Christopher
Columbus for many years. Also depicted is Ptolemy's mistaken notion
that the Indian Ocean was an enclosed body of water, an idea that was
to be disproved only five years later by the successful rounding of the
Cape of Good Hope by Bartholomeu Dias of Portugal.