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Description

One of the Earliest Obtainable Modern World Maps

Striking example of Laurent Fries edition of Martin Waldseemuller's "Admiral's Map" of the World, from the 1541 edition of Claudii Ptolemaei Alexandrini Geographicae ...., first published in Strassburg in 1522, one of the earliest obtainable maps of the world available to private collectors.

Fries has drawn upon Waldseemuller's 1513 "Admiral's Map," but enhanced it with images of animals and exotic rullers. The reference to the Admiral refers to Columbus, who in former times was believed to have been the source for the map.

Rodney Shirley in his important work on the mapping of the World refers to the map as

One of the earliest world maps available to a collector, [which] is an unsophisticated but attractive rendering of what was generally known of the world at that time.

The Fries edition Includes portraits of five kings - positioned in Russia, Egypt, Ethiopia (Prester John), Sri Lanka, and Mursuli. Annotations discuss the elephant, the Russian king at top, and Sri Lanka (Taprobana).

Fries' map is one of 3 world maps to appear in both his and Waldseemuller's atlases. The map is an amalgam of Ptolemeic and modern sources, with the British Isles, India, Sri Lanka and Madagascar all depicted in a particularly modern fashion. Shriley surmised the Waldseemuller completed the work for this map in about 1505 or 1506 (although not issued until 1513), giving viewers a rare depiction of America as known prior event to Waldseemuller's landmark map of the World, which first named America. In the introductory text, Shirley notes "an ambiguous passage referring to the "Charta autem Marina" (ie. a Mariner's Chart) derived from observations made by the "Admiral" or Christopher Columbus.

Lorenz (Laurent) Fries was born in Alsace in about 1490. He studied medicine, apparently spending time at the universities of Pavia, Piacenza, Montpellier and Vienna. After completing his education, Fries worked as a physician in several places, before settling in Strassburg, in about 1519. While in Strassburg, Fries met the Strasbourg printer and publisher Johann Grüninger, an associate of the St. Die group of scholars formed by, among others, Walter Lud, Martin Ringmann and Martin Waldseemuller.

From 1520 to 1525, Fries worked with Gruninger as a cartographic editor, exploiting the corpus of material that Waldseemuller had created. Fries' first venture into mapmaking was in 1520, when he executed a reduction of Martin Waldseemuller's wall-map of the World, published in 1507. While it would appear that Fries was the editor of the map, credit is actually given in the title to Peter Apian. The map, Tipus Orbis Universalis Iuxta Ptolomei Cosmographi Traditionem Et Americ Vespucii Aliorque Lustrationes A Petro Apiano Leysnico Elucubrat. An.o Dni MDXX, was issued in Caius Julius Solinus' Enarrationes, edited by Camers, and published in Vienna in 1520.

Fries next cartographic project that Fries undertook, was a new edition of the Geographia of Claudius Ptolemy, which was published by Johann Koberger in 1522. Fries evidently edited the maps, in most cases simply producing a reduction of the equivalent map from Waldseemuller's 1513 edition of the Geographie Opus Novissima, printed by Johann Schott. Fries also prepared three new maps for the Geographie: maps of South-East Asia and the East Indies, China and the World, but the geography of these derives from Waldseemuller's world map of 1507.

The 1522 edition of Fries work is very rare, suggesting that the work was not commercially successful. In 1525, an improved edition was issued, with a re-edit of the text by Wilibald Pirkheimer, from the notes of Johannes Regiomontanus. After Grüninger's death in 1531, the business was continued by his son Christoph, who seems to have sold the materials for the Ptolemy to two Lyon publishers, the brothers Melchior and Gaspar Trechsel, who published a joint edition in 1535, before Gaspar Trechsel published an edition in his own right, in 1541.

States

  1. 1522: Title in a banner erroneously "Tabu Gran Russie"
  2. 1525: Title removed above image, top-right-hand corner angle missing from this and later issues
  3. 1535: Title Tabu. Nova Orbis in a banner
  4. 1541: Title Tabula nova toitus orbis in plain text
Reference
Shirley 49
Lorenz Fries Biography

Lorenz (Laurent) Fries (ca. 1485-1532) was born in Mulhouse, Alsace. He studied medicine, apparently spending time at the universities of Pavia, Piacenza, Montpellier and Vienna. After completing his education, Fries worked as a physician in several places before settling in Strasbourg in about 1519. While in Strasbourg, Fries met the Strasbourg printer and publisher Johann Grüninger, an associate of the St. Dié group of scholars formed by, among others, Walter Lud, Matthias Ringmann and Martin Waldseemüller.

From 1520 to 1525, Fries worked with Grüninger as a cartographic editor, exploiting the corpus of material that Waldseemüller had created. Fries' first venture into mapmaking was in 1520, when he executed a reduction of Martin Waldseemüller's wall map of the world, first published in 1507. While it would appear that Fries was the editor of the map, credit is actually given in the title to Peter Apian. The map, Tipus Orbis Universalis Iuxta Ptolomei Cosmographi Traditionem Et Americ Vespucii Aliorque Lustrationes A Petro Apiano Leysnico Elucubrat. An.o Dni MDXX, was issued in Caius Julius Solinus' Enarrationes, edited by Camers, and published in Vienna in 1520.

Fries’ next project was a new edition of the Geographia of Claudius Ptolemy, which was published by Johann Grüninger in 1522. Fries evidently edited the maps, in most cases simply producing a reduction of the equivalent map from Waldseemüller's 1513 edition of the Geographie Opus Novissima, printed by Johann Schott. Fries also prepared three new maps for the Geographia, of Southeast Asia and the East Indies, China, and the world, but the geography of these derives from Waldseemüller's world map of 1507.

The 1522 edition of Fries' work is very rare, suggesting that the work was not commercially successful. In 1525, an improved edition was issued, with a re-edit of the text by Willibald Pirkheimer, from the notes of Regiomontanus (Johannes Müller von Königsberg).

After Grüninger's death in ca. 1531, the business was continued by his son Christoph, who seems to have sold the materials for the Ptolemy to two Lyon publishers, the brothers Melchior and Gaspar Trechsel, who published a joint edition in 1535, before Gaspar Trechsel published an edition in his own right in 1541.