Magini's Ptolemy — Map of the Holy Land & Palestine 1596 (First Magini Edition)
Magini's Ptolemy — Map of the Holy Land & Palestine 1596 (First Magini Edition)
A map of the Holy Land and Palestine from the 1596 first Magini edition of Ptolemy's Geographia. The map depicts the region following Ptolemy's classical geography — the landscape of Old and New Testament narrative, as understood in the Roman imperial era. For 16th-century European audiences, biblical maps were among the most prized of all cartographic subjects, serving religious devotion, scholarship, and political purposes simultaneously.
Available as a matched pair with our Map of Egypt/Nile — originally published together in Magini's atlas.
About Giovanni Antonio Magini (1555–1617)
Giovanni Antonio Magini was an Italian astronomer, astrologer, cartographer, and mathematician. Born in Padua, he held the chair of mathematics at the University of Bologna — chosen over Galileo Galilei for the position in 1588. A prolific writer, he authored works on celestial motion (he was a supporter of a geocentric solar system), surveying, trigonometry, and cartography.
About the Work
Magini's 1596 Latin edition of Claudius Ptolemy's Geographia, published in Venice by S. Galignani de Karera's Heirs, combined the 27 classical Ptolemaic maps with 37 "tabulae novae" reflecting contemporary geographic knowledge. The copper plates were engraved by the celebrated Venetian engraver Girolamo Porro (1520–1604), whose earlier work included the first obtainable specific map of North America in Porcacchi's 1572 Isole. Phillips notes: "The copperplate maps prepared for this edition, and engraved by Girolamo Porro, are on a smaller scale, and somewhat better executed than those in the editions of 1562."
Scarcity & Market Context
Individual Magini/Ptolemy maps appear at auction regularly but are never common; specific subjects (regional maps like Taprobana, Cyprus, Asia Minor) are especially prized. Complete 1596 or 1597 atlases sell in the $8,000–$18,000 range at specialist dealers. The Magini/Porro engravings are considered the finest Renaissance Ptolemy plates after Gastaldi's 1548 edition.
Institutional Holdings
Complete copies at the John Carter Brown Library (Brown University), the Newberry Library, the Bibliothèque nationale de France, the British Library, and major Italian state libraries.
Dimensions
Sheet approximately 10 × 13.5 inches; plate mark approximately 7 × 9.5 inches
Frame: This piece ships unframed — the sheet or plate only. We can recommend framers in your area or ship to your preferred framer. Professional framing with archival materials typically runs $150–$400 depending on size and finish.
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Important Buyer Notice
These pieces are antique originals, ranging from approximately 100 to over 400 years old. Each piece will show varying degrees of age-appropriate condition: paper toning, foxing, edge wear, fold marks, minor restoration, light staining, and other natural signs of age are common and expected for works of this period. Condition varies from piece to piece.
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