Nicolò Germano, Planisfero, in Ptolemy, Cosmographia, 1466, Estensi Digital Library, Biblioteca Estense Universitaria. Permission pending from the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities, Italy.

Nicolò Germano prepared an illuminated manuscript of Ptolemy‘s Cosmographia in 1466 for Borso d’Este, the Duke of Ferrara. The last volume of Ptolemy’s Geography was devoted to the maps, and the first map was a world map.  Painted over a bi-folio, Nicolò Germano’s Planisfero is a sumptuous view of the world, due to the luxurious use of color, especially ultramarine, the most expensive of the blues. Every corner of the known world falls under the red grid created by the conic projection (see above fig. 1.6), which also marks the lines of latitude and longitude. Beneath the grid, blue rivers cut across the ivory colored land masses of Africa, Asia, and Europe, long rolling brown cords mark mountain ranges, and a deep azure directs one’s eye to the oceans and seas. The Atlantic is a minor ocean, as compared to the Indian Ocean. To consult the edition of the Cosmographia, in the Estense Digital Library, click here.