Sylvanus, Bernardus (sold)
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.
First map of the region printed in color.
Undecima Asiae Tabula
sold
- Digital Map Information
- Suitable for large format printing
- File Size: 19.28 MB
- File Type: ZIP / TIFF
- ICC color profile embedded
- Delivered instantly via download link
This is a rare example of Bernard Sylvanus' 1511 Ptolemaic map of Southeast Asia and the Malay Peninsula. Printed in a single edition, it is one of the most visually distinctive early woodcut maps of the Far East, an area known to ancient geographers as 'India Extra Gangem' or 'India Beyond the Ganges'. By Ptolemy's reckoning, this map depicted the easternmost extreme of the Indian Ocean. This part of the world would soon be revealed to contain the East Indies and the Spice Islands. (more details)