1561 Ruscelli / Gastaldi Map of the Arabian Peninsula

One of the earliest works to depict a peninsular Qatar.

This is a superb example of Girolamo Ruscelli's 1561, first edition of the first modern map of the Arabian Peninsula, specifically the fertile part of Arabia, 'Arabia Felix.' It is an expanded and more finely engraved evolution on Gastaldi's 1548 cartography, and one of the earliest acquirable depictions of Arabia not based on the 2nd-century work of Claudius Ptolemy. The island of Bahrain (Baharam) appears. This is also one of the earliest works to depict a peninsular Qatar.

A Closer Look

While many of the topographical features are placed arbitrarily, there is a suggestion of the mountainous regions of Yemen, and the waterways and lakes placed there are suggestive of the fertility that led classical geographers to apply the term 'Felix' specifically to Yemen. That term later came to be applied to the whole peninsula. The pictorially rendered mountains and the neatly stippled oceans are clear and sharp in the present example.

Happy Arabia

Printed maps, from the earliest, termed the Arabian Peninsula 'Arabia Felix' with 'Arabiae Petraeae' to the northwest (adjacent to the Holy Land) and 'Arabiae Desertae' to the northeast (adjacent to the Fertile Crescent). The Greek scholar Eratosthenes of Cyrene termed the southernmost parts of Arabia - Yemen specifically - as Arabia Eudaimon, and it was this term that the Romans translated to Arabia Felix. These words had simultaneous meanings - 'fertile' and 'happy.' Maps derived from Ptolemy, up into the 16th century, apply the term 'Felix' in contrast to 'stony' or 'desert'. Gastaldi's 1548 map translated the Latin 'Felix' to the Italian 'Felixe' - a natural transition, except that in Italian the word's primary meaning skewed more primarily to 'happy' or 'content.' (Ruscelli's spelling of 'Felice' in the title of this map is also consistent with that meaning.) As early as 1552, French translations of Münster's Cosmographia used the term 'Heureuse Arabie'. 'Heureuse' contains the 'happy' connotations.

Classical authors associated 'Arabia Felix' with Yemen specifically, as with the present work, thus emphasizing a long association of Yemen as a fruitful land, stretching as far back as the Roman Era. Much of this reputation was tied to a near-monopoly on the trade in cinnamon and spices from both India and the Horn of Africa, particularly via the port of Aden. Yemen itself was a major source of frankincense well before Ptolemy's time. By the 16th century, Yemen began exporting drinking coffee, and was indeed the world's sole exporter of coffee until the 18th century.

Publication History and Census

This map was engraved by Giulio Sanuto for inclusion in the 1561 first Ruscelli edition of Claudius Ptolemy's La Geografia di Claudio Tolomeo. The maps in this work were engraved two to a plate; consequently, the platemark extended beyond the sheet edge at the top. This also characterizes the maps of the Latin-text editions of 1562 and 1564. For the 1574 edition, this map was entirely reengraved on a new plate, with many changes in placename spelling and differences in border shading. In addition, before the 1598 - 1599 edition, a sea monster was added to the Indian Ocean. Those late editions are also characterized by letterpress text across the top. Our example conforms to the 1561 first plate of the first Latin edition. Ruscelli's Ptolemy is well represented in institutional collections in its various editions, and the separate map appears on the market from time to time.

Cartographers

Girolamo Ruscelli (1500 - 1566) was an Italian polymath, humanist, editor, and cartographer active in Venice during the early 16th century. His work as a polygraph - a writer on many subjects, producing, editing, and copying content for the new printing industry - required erudition in a broad array of fields. Born in Viterbo, Ruscelli lived in Aquileia, Padua, Rome, and Naples before relocating to Venice, where he spent much of his life.   Cartographically, Ruscelli is best known for his important revision of Ptolemy's Geographia, which he published in 1561, with further editions as late as 1599.  Ruscelli's work represented a marked improvement on Gastaldi's 1548 Ptolemy, presenting both the ancient and modern maps in larger, more clearly-engraved examples. His edition also included maps not present in Gastaldi's Ptolemy, including the first double-hemisphere world map to appear in a Geography, the earliest mapping of the British Isles from an English source, and the notorious and influential Zeno map of the North Atlantic.  Ruscelli is also listed as the editor of such important works as Boccaccio's Decameron, Petrarch's verse, Ariosto's Orlando Furioso, and various other works. In addition to his well-known cartographic work, many scholars associate Ruscelli with Alexius Pedemontanus, author of the popular De' Secreti del R. D. Alessio Piemontese. This well-known work, or "Book of Secrets," was a compilation of scientific and quasi-scientific medical recipes, household advice, and technical commentary on a range of topics that included metallurgy, alchemy, dyeing, and perfume making.  Ruscelli, as Alexius, founded an "Academy of Secrets," a group of noblemen and humanists dedicated to unearthing "forbidden" scientific knowledge.  This was the first known experimental scientific society and was later imitated by a number of other groups throughout Europe, including the Accademia dei Secreti of Naples.   Further Details...

Giacomo Gastaldi (c. 1500 - October, 1566) was an Italian astronomer, cartographer, and engineer active in the second half of the 16th century. Gastaldi (sometimes referred to as Jacopo or Iacobo) began his career as an engineer, serving the Venetian Republic in that capacity until the fourth decade of the sixteenth century. During this time he traveled extensively, building a large library relating to voyages and exploration. From about 1544 he turned his attention to mapmaking, working extensively with Gextantiovanni Battista Ramusio, Nicolo Bascarini, and Giovanbattista Pedrezano, as well as taking private commissions for, among others, Venice's Council of Ten. He is credited with the fresco maps of Asia and Africa still extant in the map room of the Doge's Palace. Gastaldi was also one of the first cartographers to embrace copper plate over woodblock engraving, marking an important development in the history of cartography. His 1548 edition of Ptolemy's Geographia was the first to be printed in a vernacular; it was the first to be printed in copperplate. As with his Swiss/German contemporary Münster, Gastaldi's work contained many maps depicting newly discovered regions for the first time, including the first map to focus on the East Coast of North America, and the first modern map of the Indian Peninsula. His works provided the source for the vast majority of the Venetian and Roman map publishers of the 1560s and 70s, and would continue to provide an outsize influence on the early maps of Ortelius, De Jode, and Mercator.   Further Details...

Giulio Sanuto (fl. 1540 – 1580) was a Venetian engraver. He was born the illegitimate son of Cavaliere Francesco di Angelo Sanuto; With his brother, the cartographer and scientific instrument maker Livio Sanuto (1520 – 1576) he produced an array of some of the most important geographical works produced in Venice during the second half of the sixteenth century. These included a 27-inch globe and the 1588 12-sheet atlas, Geografia della Africa. Giulio's career is singluar among Venice's engraves in that it appears to have been equally based on artistic, figurative work as well as his cartographic works. Giulio is more broadly known for a small but sought-after selection of decorative engravings; no more than twelve of these can be attributed confidently to him, including the monumental Apollo and Marsyas, measuring over 1.30 meters wide. Whilst Sanuto's engravings were generally based upon the designs of other artists, his work was both ambitious and grand, and he often signed these works.   Further Details...

Source

Ruscelli, G., La Geografia di Claudio Tolomeo Alessandrino…, (Venice: Valgrisi) 1561.    

Beginning in 1561, Girolamo Ruscelli published this important, expanded edition of Giacomo Gastaldi's 1548 Ptolemy. Its maps, engraved in Venice by Giulio Sanuto, were in the main based directly upon those in Gastaldi's 1548 work. The maps were larger format than Gastaldi's, however, and Sanuto's engraving was far clearer and more legible than those appearing in the 1548 work. There are some important additions that distinguish Ruscell's Ptolemy from Gastaldi's. Ruscelli's work contained a map of the habitable world according to Ptolemy, which the Gastaldi lacked; also, the double-hemisphere map appearing in the Ruscelli was new and did not appear in the Gastaldi. Ruscelli's modern map of England was based on the work of George Lily, rather than on the Waldseemüller-derived map appearing in the Gastaldi; the Ruscelli map is the earliest generally available map of England based on firsthand knowledge. In a fateful innovation, Ruscelli's work included Septentrionalium partium nova tabula,the first copy of Nicolo Zeno's 1558 fraud Carta da Navegar, which introduced a novel mapping of the northern parts of the world, including the phantom islands of Frisland, Icaria, Drogeo, and Estotiland. Had Ruscelli not copied the Zeno, which had a narrow, brief publication, this preposterous geography would have probably not taken hold. Its inclusion in Ruscelli's beautiful, authoritative, and popular work would lead to the adoption of the Zeno map by Mercator, Ortelius, Plancius, and their successors, baffling scholars for centuries. Ruscelli's Ptolemy had a long publication history, cementing the influence of the work. It appeared both in Italian and Latin editions, all printed in Venice, throughout the latter 16th century:

• 1561 La Geographia di Claudio Tolomeo Alessandrino, Italian. Venice, Vincenzo Valgrisi.
• 1562 Geographia Cl. Ptolemaei Alexandrini, Latin. Venice, Vincenzo Valgrisi.
• 1564 La Geographia di Claudio Tolomeo Alessandrino, Italian. Venice, Giordano Ziletti.
• 1564 Geographia Cl. Ptolemaei Alexandrini, Latin. Venice, Giordano Ziletti.

Maps from the above four editions are distinguishable from later issues by their platemarks, which run off the top of the sheet. (The maps were engraved two-to-a-plate head-to-head, and printed simultaneously. Some examples of the uncut sheets have survived.) There is some evidence that, during the course of the publication of the 1564 Latin edition, Ziletti had begun to divide the plates. The map of the ancient world in the editions above was based on Ptolemy's second, curvilinear projection; the Zeno map appears on its first plate.

• 1574 La Geographia di Claudio Tolomeo Alessandrino, Italian. Venice, Giordano Ziletti.
• 1598 Geographia di Claudio Tolomeo Alessandrino, Italian. Venice, heirs of Melchoir Sessa.
• 1599 Geographia di Claudio Tolomeo Alessandrino, Italian. Venice, heirs of Melchoir Sessa.

By 1574, all of the paired plates had been divided. The Ptolemaic world map is newly engraved, utilizing Ptolemy's first, trapezoidal projection. The Zeno map has also been replaced with a new copperplate engraving. Both the 1598 and 1599 Sessa editions can be distinguished from earlier editions by the presence of letterpress text in the upper border of the map sheets and the addition of decorative engraving on many of the maps. We thank Eliane Dotson for accompanying us on this particular rabbit hole.

Condition

Excellent. A very bold, sharp strike with generous margins.

References

OCLC 500400175. (1574) Rumsey 11311.115. Al Ankary, Khaled The Arabian Peninsula in Old European Maps plate 12.