Sophianos, Nicolaos (sold) (Νικόλαος Σοφιανός)
Nicolaos Sophianos (Νικόλαος Σοφιανός; c. 1500 - 1551) was a Greek Renaissance cartographer and humanist. He is best known for his 8-sheet Totes Graeciae Descriptio, the most important modern map of Greece of the 16th century. He was born to a noble family in Corfu, but sent to Rome to study the Greek Gymnasium. He was a talented student and attracted the favor of Cardinal Nicholas of Rodolfo, whose house was rightly called the abode of wisdom, because the many learned men who patronized it. In 1543, Sofianos traveled to Venice, where he met the Spaniard Jacobus Mendoza, who commissioned him to journey to Mount Athos in search of Greek manuscripts. During this expedition, Sofianos uncovered several important texts, including manuscripts of Isocrates (436 BCE - 338 BCE) that were more complete than any editions printed up to that time. While in Venice he established a Greek printing house, from which only the 1545 Horologion survives. His map, published in 1540, is the basis for Salamanca's Graeciae Chorographia, which would prove the main vector by which Sophianos' work was disseminated.
AKA: Νικόλαος Σοφιανός
Earliest acquirable copperplate map of Crete.
Candido lectori. Haec est illa insignis insula Creta in medio Ponto sita... hodie Candia... cujus circuitus octo et quinquaginta supra quingenta miliaria habet...
sold
- Digital Map Information
- Suitable for large format printing
- Full resolution TIFF file
- ICC color profile embedded
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This beautifully engraved Lafreri-school work is Sebastiano di Re's 1559 map of Crete, the earliest engraved map of the island acquirable by the collector. It derives from Crete as represented in Nicolaos Sophianos' foundational map of Greece. (more details)