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Fascinating oval projection of the World, by the distinguished Italian geographer Giovanni Magini published a quarto edition of Ptolemy beginning in 1596. Later editions were also published in Cologne.
This particular world map used the oval projection popularized by Abraham Ortelius, and follows that model very closely. Most notable are the large landmasses of
Terra Incognita and
Terra Australis at both poles. Six wind-heads are arranged above and below the map.
Giovanni Antonio Magini was an accomplished Italian cartographer, astronomer, astrologer, and mathematician—in short, a Renaissance man. Born in Padua, he studied philosophy in Bologna. His first publication was Ephemerides coelestium motuum, an astronomical treatise published in 1582. In 1588 he was selected, over Galileo Galilei, to fill the chair of mathematics at the University of Bologna. He died in that city in 1617.
Magini operated under a geocentric understanding of the universe and created his own planetary theory consisting of eleven rotating spheres. He published this theory in Novæ cœlestium orbium theoricæ congruentes cum observationibus N. Copernici (Venice, 1589). In the 1590s he published works on surveying and trigonometry, as well as invented a calculator. In 1596, he published a commentary of Ptolemy’s Geographia, which was published in several editions and languages. He labored for years on an atlas of Italy, which was printed posthumously in 1620. To pay for this project, Magini served as the math tutor to the son of the Duke of Mantua, as well as being the court astrologer to the Duke.
![[Cook's Circumnavigation of the World] Carte Generale Offrant Les Decouvertes Faites Par Le Capitaine Jacques Cook . . . .Par Henry Robert, Lieutenant de la Marine du Roi](https://storage.googleapis.com/raremaps/img/small/70382.jpg)
