This is a unique opportunity to acquire one of the earliest published maps of Great Britain and Ireland. A very rare map from an atlases published only 47 years after Johannes Gutenberg invention of the moveable type printing press in 1439.
This Ptolemy trapezoid projection map was printed as part of Lienhart Holle's 1486 edition of the Claude Ptolemy's Atlas Claudii Ptolomei .... Cosmographie ... Opus Donni Nicolai Germani Secvndvm Ptolomevm Finit, Ulm, Germany. (Shirley 5)
From a collecting perspective there are only 4 other maps of Great Britain & Ireland published prior to this.

This large map is in fine condition on strong sturdy paper, the printing impression is heavy and clear. The colour is original and beautifully applied. There has been professional restoration to the L&R bottom corners. No loss of original paper and restrengthened on the verso. The centerfold has been re-strengthened, on the verso, with some light creasing and rippling. Please see the images below. A great map and a unique addition to any collection.
We have found 6 sales records for this map since 1983 with the top price of $19,854.

The first edition's of Ptolemy’s ‘Geographia’ was published in Italy in 1477, republished in 1478 & 1482. The next atlas to be published was north of the Alps by Lienhart Holle, in Ulm, Germany in 1482. Holle’s maps were printed from woodcuts, and are distinct with their heavy wash colouring for the sea areas, typically a rich blue for the 1482 edition, and an ochre for the 1486 edition. These bright colours, and the greater sense of age that woodcuts convey, make this series of maps one of the most visually attractive.

Claude Ptolemy; The earliest printed atlases were editions of the geographical text of Claudius Ptolemy (or Ptolemaeus), a Greek astronomer and geographer working in Alexandria, circa 150 A.D. Such was the importance of Ptolemy’s work, and the wide influence it held over future geographers, that many of his errors were perpetuated by subsequent mapmakers.  The most important of them was a miscalculation of the circumference of the earth. Ptolemy, himself, under-exaggerated the circumference if the earth, by calculating each degree of longitude as 500 stadia, instead of a more accurate 700 stadia.  He then exaggerated the length of the Mediterranean by about 30%, and also that of Asia, thus greatly reducing the distance between the western tip of Spain, and the east coast of Asia. This had important consequences, for all future explorers including Columbus who was know to own the 1478 edition of Ptolemy Geographia.

Re-discovery of the Ptolemy Texts: Following the fall of the Roman Empire, Ptolemy’s text was lost to western geographers. The earliest extant manuscript version of the ‘Geographia’ is Arabic, and probably dates from the 12th Century.  Subsequently, the text was translated into Greek, and circulated through the Greek World. In about 1400 a Greek manuscript came into the hands of the Byzantine scholar, Emanuel Chrysolaras, who was working in Italy.  Chrysolaras undertook a translation of the text into Latin, and completed by his pupil Jacopo d'Angelo, in 1406. The Greek manuscript that Angelo translated was apparently lacking maps, but the data in the text contained the information to construct a set of maps, and numbers of scholars set about such work.  Of them, the most influential, was Donnus Nicolaus Germanus, a German cartographer, active in Italy from the 1460’s to 1480’s.  He was a prolific editor of the text and maps, and his work formed the basis for three of the four sets of Ptolemaic maps printed in the fifteenth Century, with the fourth, accompanying Berlinghieri’s ‘Geographia’, “strongly influenced” by him .

The first printed versions of Ptolemy’s Text: The first published edition of the ‘Geographia’ with maps, which were probably engraved by Taddeo Crivelli, was issued in Bologna in 1477. Conrad Sweynheym was also working on an edition of Ptolemy in Rome in the same period.  After his death, Arnold Buckinck, saw the atlas through the press, in 1478.  Of the engraved editions of Ptolemy’s ‘Cosmographia’ the maps in the Rome edition are the finest fifteenth century examples, and second only to Mercator’s maps, from his 1578 edition. The atlas proved popular, and three successive editions (to 1508) followed. In 1482, Nicolas Laurentii published a set of Ptolemaic maps to illustrate Francesco Berlinghieri ‘Geographia’.
The first edition of Ptolemy’s ‘Geographia’ printed outside Italy was published by Lienhart Holle, in Ulm, also in 1482. Holle’s maps were printed from woodcuts, and are characterised by heavy wash colouring for the sea areas, typically a rich blue for the 1482 edition, and an ochre for the 1486 edition. These bright colours, and the greater sense of age that woodcuts convey, make this series the most visually appealing of these various sets of maps.

Later Editions of Ptolemy: Next in chronological sequence, and the most unusual of the editions of Ptolemy, was that  published by Jacobus Pentius de Leucho in Venice in 1511, edited by Bernardus Sylvanus. Martin Waldseemuller’s edition of Ptolemy, first published in 1513, is the most important of the sixteenth century editions.  Waldseemuller’s edition was reprinted in 1520, and then the maps were re-drawn by Lorenz Fries on a smaller format, for editions published in 1522, 1525, 1535 and 1541. The next to produce an edition of Ptolemy was Sebastian Munster, who worked in Basle.  Munster was one of the leading geographers and cartographers of his period, and he diligently set about revising and improving the maps. Giacomo Gastaldi, one of the leading cartographers of the sixteenth century, composed a set of maps for an edition of the ‘Geographia’, published in Venice in 1548.  Of all the editions of Ptolemy, that prepared by Gerard Mercator, and published in 1578, is technically the finest, with the World map being a particularly fine engraving. This atlas is, also, noteworthy for its longevity, the original printing plates were still in use in 1730, over one hundred and fifty years after they were first engraved. (Ref: Shirley 5; Stevenson; Tooley; M&B; MapForum)

General Description:
Paper thickness and quality: - Heavy and stable
Paper color: - off white
Age of map color: - Original
Colors used: - Yellow, green, red, brown.
General color appearance: - Authentic and fresh
Paper size: - 20 1/2in x 15 1/2in (552mm x 397mm)
Image size: -14 1/2in x 14 1/2in x 20 1/4in (369mm x 369mm (upper margin) 511 mm (lower margin)
Margins: - Min 1/4in (6mm)

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