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First state of Girolomo Ruscelli's map of the world from his La Geografia, the first double hemisphere world map to appear in an Atlas.
One of two modern world maps in Ruscelli's Atlas, based upon Gastaldi's world map of 1548. The map is adapted from the oval projection used in Gastaldi's larger world map and is presented on Roger Bacon's circular projection, also used by Tramezzino's large world map of 1554. No southern continent is shown. The map clearly shows the broad mass of land joining Asia and America as Terra Incognita and the coastline as Littus Incongmitum.
At one time, it was believed that the printer was Valgrisi but it is now believed that the brothers Guilio and Livio Sanuto were the source of the map. Subsequent editions appear in the 1562, 1564 and 1574 editions of Ruscelli's work. The map also appears in the 1582 edition of Lorenzo D'Anania's L'Universale Fabrica Del Mondo.
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.
