MINIATURIST, Italian
(active around 1470 in Florence)

Ptolemy: Geography

c. 1470
Manuscript (Ms. lat. 4802)
Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris

This manuscript is a copy of Ptolemy's Geography. It was commissioned in Florence in about 1470 for Alfonso of Calabria. Claudius Ptolemy (c. 100-after 160) was a Greco-Roman writer of Alexandria, known as a mathematician, astronomer, geographer, astrologer, and poet of a single epigram in the Greek Anthology. His maps and writings represent the peak achievement of Greek geography. Approximately 52 manuscripts are known, the oldest dates from the 10th century.

This manuscript includes a map of Florence on folio 132v, shown here.