Sylvanus, Bernardus
Bernardus Sylvanus (fl 1465-1511,) or Bernardo Silvani, was an Italian scholar and printer born in the 1460s in Eboli in southern Italy. He is thought to have lived in Naples in 1490, and to have studied Ptolemy there; he produced a manuscript edition of Ptolemy's Geographia there. In 1511 - by this time, in Venice - he published a further edition of Ptolemy's Geographia, the first to be printed in two colors, and the first Italian Ptolemy to be produced using woodblocks. There are no known works by Sylvanus after this one.
Eastern reaches of the Silk Road.
Octava Asia Tabula.
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- Digital Map Information
- Suitable for large format printing
- File Size: 18.22 MB
- File Type: ZIP / TIFF
- ICC color profile embedded
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This is a rare example of Bernard Sylvanus' 1511 Ptolemaic map of the eastern reaches of the Silk Road. Printed in a single edition, it is one of the most visually distinctive early woodcut maps to detail parts of modern-day Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan, the northeastern part of Mongolia, and the Xinjiang province of China. For Ancient Romans, this was the most remote part of the known world: Serica, named after the precious silk understood to originate there. (more details)