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Description

Striking example of Ruscelli's map of Italy, Corsica, and the Gulf of Venice, from his La Geographi di Claudio Tolomeo.

Based upon Gastaldi's miniature map of 1548. One of the earliest obtainable modern maps of Italy.

The present example is the scarce third state of the map, which adds a sailing ship and 2 sea monsters.

Girolamo Ruscelli Biography

Girolamo Ruscelli (1500-1566) was a cartographer, humanist, and scholar from Tuscany. Ruscelli was a prominent writer and editor in his time, writing about a wide variety of topics including the works of Giovanni Boccaccio and Francesco Petrarch, Italian language, Italian poetry, medicine, alchemy, and militia. One of his most notable works was a translation of Ptolemy’s Geographia which was published posthumously.

There is limited information available about Ruscelli’s life. He was born in the Tuscan city of Viterbo to a family of modest means. He was educated at the University of Padua and moved between Rome and Naples until 1548, when he moved to Naples to work in a publishing house as a writer and proofreader. He remained in the city until his death in 1566.