The first woodcut map of the world on a Ptolemaic projection, by Johannes Schnitzer (‘woodcutter’ in German) of Armszheim, signed in the block by him along the top edge “Insculptum est per Johane Schnitzer de Armszheim”, as it was understood by the Alexandrine ancients, on a Ptolemaic projection extending from Great Britain in the northwest, the Canary islands in the west, mid-China in the east, and northern Africa in the south, the Indian Ocean features a large island, Taprobana, now Sri Lanka, with the new addition of a rudimentary Scandinavia within an extension of the map above the neatline, the whole surrounded by a broad decorative border including 12 windheads.
Issued by Lienhart Holl in Ulm in 1482, and showing Greenland and Scandinavia in a Ptolemaic map for the first time. Holl’s atlas was the first to be printed in Germany, the first to contain maps made from woodcut blocks, the first to be issued with hand-coloured maps, and the first to name the cartographer of the maps.
The world map is the first to be signed, by Johannes Schnitzer of Armszheim, who, in trade-mark fashion has reversed every capital N, and inadvertently provided two Tropics of Cancer. Further, the mapmaker updated the Ptolemaic world picture by incorporating improvements that were probably based on a manuscript of the 1470s by Nicolaus Germanus (c1420-1490), a Benedictine monk of Reichenbach Abbey in Bavaria, who is depicted in the first illuminated letter of the atlas presenting his book to the dedicatee Pope Paul II. One notable addition is a rudimentary depiction of Scandinavia to the north, within an extension of the map's top border. This is also the earliest printed map to show the northernmost reaches of the Atlantic Ocean. The world map, moreover, embodies what is perhaps the most readily apparent feature of the Ulm Ptolemy: its beauty.
The text of Claudius Ptolemy's ‘Cosmographia’ was translated into Latin from the original Greek by Jacobus Angelus and was first published, in Renaissance times, at Vicenza (1475, unillustrated), Bologna (1477) and Rome (1478). The sumptuous edition published at Ulm in 1482, however, far surpassed all earlier efforts and remains one of the most important publications in the history of cartography. This is the first redaction of the 'Geography' to be printed outside of Italy, the earliest atlas printed in Germany, the first to depart from the classical prototype to reflect post-antique discoveries, the first to be illustrated with woodcuts rather than engravings, and the first to contain hand-colored maps, the design and execution of which were ascribed to a named cartographer, and the first to incorporate the five modern maps by Nicolaus Germanus.
The Ulm edition, moreover, was the first to depart from the classical prototype by expanding the atlas to reflect post-antique discoveries about the size and shape of the earth. To the canonical twenty-seven Ptolemaic maps were added five "modern maps" of Spain, France, Italy, the Holy Land and northern Europe.
Though printed outside Italy, the paper this magnificent atlas was printed on was imported from Italy, and payment made in part by complete copies of the finished atlas.