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Description

Second state of Ruscelli's map of Scandinavia of the earliest obtainable modern maps of Scandinavia.

Published in Ruscelli's La Geographi di Claudio Tolomeo, this map of Scandinavia combines Ptolemaic and modern cartographic information. Modern cities listed. Denmark is in a Ptolemaic configuration. Scotland retains its west-east slant, and Thule is larger than Ireland.

 

States

This is the second state, which can be distinguished from the first state by the presence of a platemark at the top and the addition of hatching at the left and slanted hatching at the right of the mountain bases running down the peninsula.

Condition Description
Second state (1574).
Reference
Ginsberg Scandinavia, #18.
Girolamo Ruscelli Biography

Girolamo Ruscelli (1500-1566) was a cartographer, humanist, and scholar from Tuscany. Ruscelli was a prominent writer and editor in his time, writing about a wide variety of topics including the works of Giovanni Boccaccio and Francesco Petrarch, Italian language, Italian poetry, medicine, alchemy, and militia. One of his most notable works was a translation of Ptolemy’s Geographia which was published posthumously.

There is limited information available about Ruscelli’s life. He was born in the Tuscan city of Viterbo to a family of modest means. He was educated at the University of Padua and moved between Rome and Naples until 1548, when he moved to Naples to work in a publishing house as a writer and proofreader. He remained in the city until his death in 1566.