Geografia cioe Descrittione Universale della Terra Partita in due volumi, Nel Primo de quali si contengono gli Otto Libri della Geografia di Cl. Tolomeo, Nuouamente con Singolare Studio rincontrati, & corretti dall’eccellmo. Sig. Gio. Ant. Magini Padovano … Nel Secondo vi sono poste XXVII. Tauole Antiche di Tolomeo, & XXXVII. altre Moderne … Dal Latino nell’Italiano Tradotta dal R. D. Leonardo Cernoti Vinitiano Canonico di S. Salvadore.

Venice: Giovanni Battista and Giorgio Galignani, 1598 & (volume 2) 1597, First Italian edition, 2 vols In one, engraved printer’s devices to titles, engraved headpieces, initials, and tailpieces, full-page engraved double-hemisphere world map by Girolamo Porro after Mercator, 63 in-text copper-engraved maps, and woodcut diagrams, contemporary vellum with handwritten title to spine, folio (29 x 20.5 cm)

The First Italian edition of Giovanni Antonio Magini’s edition of Ptolemy’s Geography, translated in Italian by the Venetian Leonardo Cernoti. The work brings together the classical texts of ancient geography with a rich corpus of engraved maps updated in accordance with sixteenth-century knowledge. The double hemispherical world map of Mercator has been re-engraved by Girolamo Porro (circa 1520-1604), and it is ‘to the artist’s credit that so much detail has been represented with such fineness and clarity’ (Shirley, Mapping of the World, 194).
This Geografia represents a transitional moment between the Ptolemaic tradition and modern cartography and is now regarded as one of the most significant geographical works of the Renaissance.

Phillips, Atlases 405; Shirley, British Library T.PTOL-12b; Burden, Mapping of North America 93.