1561 Ruscelli / Ptolemy World Map

This is Girolamo Ruscelli's 1561 plate of a foundational work of Renaissance cartography: the map of the known world as understood at the time of the Roman Empire. This presentation of ancient geography is refreshingly unique in that it employs Ptolemy's second projection, as opposed to the more typical, simpler first projection.

Ptolemy's Projections

Apart from the 1482 Berlinghieri and the 1511 Sylvanus, this is the only Ptolemaic world map printed south of the Alps to do so. In terms of its composition and content, it has no identifiable precursor, and it was not imitated. It only appeared in the 1561-1564 editions of the Ruscelli Ptolemy; later editions of the work contained the simpler and more conventional first Ptolemaic projection. While many of the maps appearing in Ruscelli's Ptolemy were derived from Giacomo Gastaldi's 1548 edition, Gastaldi's Ptolemy contained no Ptolemaic world map.

Perhaps Ptolemy's most fundamental innovation was to represent the three-dimensional world projected on a grid, providing the basis of all modern cartography. Ptolemy proposed two different methods of drawing such a projection. The first is the conic projection, based on a tangent to the Earth at the 36° parallel, with straight meridians that close towards the poles and parallels forming concentric arcs. The second projection was more complex: it modified the conic projection by presenting the meridians as curving inwards towards the poles. The latter was the model used for the present map.

With the exception of the 1482 Berlinghieri and the 1511 Sylvanus, all Ptolemaic world maps printed south of the Alps in the 15th and early 16th centuries were drawn using Ptolemy's first projection. Most of those printed north of the Alps followed the lead of Donnus Nicolaus Germanus in using Ptolemy's second projection. Since these were all woodcuts, however, most could not include the detail and clarity achieved on even a small copperplate engraving such as this. (Shirley calls it 'restrained and simple.')

A Closer Look

Employing Ptolemy's curvilinear projection, the present map labels Ptolemy's latitudes and longitudes at the top, bottom, and right-hand borders. Along the left border are more detailed labels of the climate zones, including the hours of daylight at the solstice at given latitudes. Ptolemy's data reflected that available to a 2nd-century Alexandrian, limited by that era's exploratory scope and its limited ability to measure distance accurately. The picture of the world thus presented is distorted despite the utility and importance of the methodology.

The Ptolemaic 'world map' is thus a representation of only the known inhabited world, the Oikoumene. Its westernmost limit is the 'Fortunate Isles' (Fortunatae) in the Atlantic Ocean, and to the east, the projection ends at China (Sinarum Situs). The map shows from 63°N to 14°S, thus encompassing the British Isles as the northernmost limit of Europe, while the southern limits pass far beyond those areas familiar to 2nd-century travelers into the realm of speculation and legend.

The Indian Ocean and the Sinus Magnus

The Indian Ocean is presented as a massive inland sea. Note that at the southern limits of eastern Africa, the coastline turns sharply to the east and continues until it turns north, ultimately meeting the Asian coastline at China beyond the Malay Peninsula and 'India Beyond the Ganges.' The portion of the Indian Ocean enclosed beyond the peninsula, Ptolemy termed the Great Bay, or 'Magnus Sinus.' Portuguese journeys around Africa proved that the land connection between China and Africa around the Indian Ocean did not exist: what, then, was the extent of the Magnus Sinus? Did land reach around it to the south from China? Was the ocean discovered by Magellan the same body of water as this? Was the mysterious coastline at the eastern limit of Ptolemy's knowledge the same as the west coast of the Americas? All European geographical thinking about the Pacific Ocean and the nature of the American discoveries began from a foundation of knowledge encapsulated in this map.

Africa and The Nile

Northern Africa was nearly as well understood by Ptolemy as was Europe itself: all fell within the bounds of the Roman Empire, and after all, the Greco-Roman Ptolemy was, himself, a native of Alexandria. Beyond the great African deserts, however, lay mysteries unknown. Ptolemy's sources told him of the sources of the Nile - found in the lakes of the Mountains of the Moon. This representation remained unchallenged on maps of Africa until the end of the 17th century.

The Mysteries of Scythia and the East

The Indies and Africa were not the only lands draped in obscurity. Beyond the Black Sea to the north and east, Ptolemy's geography grows less and less detailed. The regions of Scythia, Serica, and the Imaum Mountains were - to Ptolemy's era - the domain of little-known nomadic peoples, often reputed to be cannibals. The Persian kingdoms of Sogdiana, Bactriana, Parthia, and so on are accurately placed, but the Caspian, or Hyrcanian, Sea is shown distorted into an east-west oval was not corrected in European geography until the 18th century.

Publication History and Census

This map was first engraved, probably by Giulio Sanuto for the 1561 Valgrisi edition of Ruscelli's La Geographia di Claudio Tolomeo…, but it only remained in use until 1564. Editions 1574 and later contained a different map. The present example conforms typographically to the first Latin edition of 1562. The maps of this edition were engraved two-to-a-plate, and consequently, the platemark runs off the edge of the sheet at the top. (the same plate as Ruscelli's version of the Zeno map, Septentrionalium partium nova tabula.) We see eleven examples of the separate map listed in institutional collections. It appears on the market from time to time.