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This map represents the regions of northern and eastern Europe, as visualized in the 2nd-century work of Claudius Ptolemy. Printed in the 1486 edition of Geographia, produced in Ulm by Johann Reger based on a manuscript by Nicolaus Germanus. It depicts northern and eastern Europe, focusing on the regions that Ptolemy referred to as Scythia, Sarmatia, and Germania. The map features prominent water bodies such as the Occeanus Sarmaticus (Sarmatian Ocean, today the Baltic Sea), the Sinus Venedorus (Venedian Gulf or Sea), and the Paludes Meotides (Meotian Marshes, or the Sea of Azov). The Ponti Euximi Pars (Black Sea) is also labeled.
The map shows Sarmatia Europe, which refers to the European portion of Sarmatia, an ancient region that stretched across parts of Eastern Europe, including modern-day Ukraine and southern Russia. This designation comes from the classical geography of Ptolemy, which identified the lands inhabited by the Sarmatian people.
In the northeast corner, Hiperborei mont- refers to the Hyperborean Mountains, a mythical range thought to be near the far northern reaches of the known world, corresponding to lands north of Scythia or even extending into modern Scandinavia. In their midst, Fous occidentale rha flu- refers to the western source or outflow of the Rha, which was the ancient name for the Volga River. In Ptolemaic geography, the Volga was one of the great rivers that helped define the boundary between Europe and Asia. According to ancient definitions, the river Tanais (Don) served as a significant geographical marker dividing Europe from Asia, as well.
The map extends westward as far as the Istula fluuius (the Vistula River), with Germanie pars (part of Germania) lying to the east. Germania was the Latin term used by the Romans to describe the vast territories inhabited by Germanic tribes, stretching from the Rhine in the west to the Vistula in the east.
At the southern part of the map is the delta of the Danubius flu. (the Danube River), which was one of the most significant waterways of antiquity, flowing through Central and Eastern Europe into the Black Sea.
Above the Danube, Misie inferioris pars is labeled, referring to the northern part of Moesia Inferior, a Roman province located along the southern banks of the lower Danube, corresponding to modern-day northern Bulgaria and parts of Romania. In the lower left corner, a western portion of the Danube is again shown.
The map gives many placenames and locations in Turica thersoue. This region refers to the Taurica (Crimea), an important area on the northern coast of the Black Sea known for its Greek colonies and later for its Scythian and Sarmatian inhabitants.
In the southeast of the map the Cozax mons (Caucasus Mountains) are shown lying just above Colchides, refering to Colchis, an ancient region located along the eastern coast of the Black Sea, in what is now modern-day Georgia. Colchis is famously known in Greek mythology as the homeland of Medea and the destination of Jason and the Argonauts in their quest for the Golden Fleece.
The Ulm Ptolemy of 1482 and 1486
The Ulm edition of Ptolemy was first published in 1482 by Lienhart Holle. In contrast to the two earlier illustrated editions of Ptolemy's geography - Bologna (1477) and Rome (1478) - the maps in the Ulm edition are woodblock prints, not copperplate engravings. The maps in the Ulm edition follow the manuscript maps of Donnus Nicolaus Germanus, a Benedictine monk from Breslau who produced brilliant presentation copies for Italian elites in the 1460s and 1470s. Specifically, the Ulm was patterned after the manuscript atlas prepared for Pope Paul II. The Ulm Ptolemy was the first book Holle published, but it was also to be one of his last. Holle went bankrupt shortly after the original publication. The work was then taken over by Johann Reger, who issued another edition in 1486.
The differences between the two editions are relatively small. The 1486 maps typically include titles at the top, whereas there were no titles on the 1482 maps. An unpublished study of the individual maps reveals that there are multiple states of most of the maps.
It had long been suggested that the way to differentiate between the 1482 and 1486 editions was the use of lapis lazuli blue in the 1482 edition for the seas, whereas the 1486 used brown. However, the same unpublished study, which evaluated dozens of examples of the two editions, determined that the earliest examples of the 1486 were also issued with the lapis lazuli blue, suggesting that when Johann Reger acquired the woodblocks, he likely also acquired some unused lapis lazuli. In 2021, we offered for sale a complete example of a 1486 entirely in lapis lazuli blue.
Claudius Ptolemy (fl. AD 127-145) was an ancient geographer, astronomer, and mathematician. He is known today through translations and transcriptions of his work, but little is known about his life besides his residence in Alexandria.
Several of his works are still known today, although they have passed through several alterations and languages over the centuries. The Almagest, in thirteen books, discusses astronomy. It is in the Almagest that Ptolemy postulates his geocentric universe. His geometric ideas are contained in the Analemma, and his optical ideas were presented in five books known as the Optica.
His geographic and cartographic work was immensely influential. In the Planisphaerium, Ptolemy discusses the stereographic projection. Perhaps his best-known work is his Geographia, in eight books. However, Ptolemy’s ideas had been absent from western European intellectual history for roughly a thousand years, although Arab scholars interacted with his ideas from the ninth century onward.
In 1295, a Greek monk found a copy of Geographia in Constantinople; the emperor ordered a copy made and the Greek text began to circulate in eastern Europe. In 1393, a Byzantine diplomat brought a copy of the Geographia to Italy, where it was translated into Latin in 1406 and called the Cosmographia. The manuscript maps were first recorded in 1415. These manuscripts, of which there are over eighty extant today, are the descendants of Ptolemy’s work and a now-lost atlas consisting of a world map and 26 regional maps.
When Ptolemy’s work was re-introduced to Western scholarship, it proved radically influential for the understanding and appearance of maps. Ptolemy employs the concept of a graticule, uses latitude and longitude, and orients his maps to the north—concepts we take for granted today. The Geographia’s text is concerned with three main issues with regard to geography: the size and shape of the earth; map projection, i.e. how to represent the world’s curve proportionally on a plane surface; and the corruption of spatial data as it transfers from source to source. The text also contains instructions as to how to map the world on a globe or a plane surface, complete with the only set of geographic coordinates (8000 toponyms, 6400 with coordinates) to survive from the classical world.
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