(GEOGRAPHY -- PTOLEMAIC.) Giacomo Gastaldi, mapmaker. La Geografia di Claudio Ptolemeo Alessandrino. Woodcut portrait of Ptolemy and 60 miniature double-page engraved maps. 8vo, 6¾x4½ inches, later vellum to style; intermittent dampstain and other light soiling, final colophon leaf with small worm track repairs. Venice: Giovanni Battista Pederzano, 1548
"This edition of Ptolemy's Geography was the most comprehensive atlas produced between Martin Waldseemuller's Geographiae of 1513, and the Abraham Ortelius Theatrum of 1570. It was the first to contain regional maps of the American continent. Giacomo Gastaldi had the maps beautifully engraved on copper. This marks a turning point, from now on the majority of cartographic works used this medium… and [he] became one of the greatest cartographers of the sixteenth century" - Burden 16.
