MINIATURIST, Italian
(active around 1472 in Florence)

Ptolemy: Cosmography

1472
Manuscript (Urb. lat. 277), 593 x 435 mm
Biblioteca Apostolica, Vatican

This manuscript is a copy of Ptolemy's Cosmography. It was commissioned in 1472 for Federico da Montefeltro, Duke of Urbino. 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.

The illustration shows the map of Ispania, Spain.