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The Ptolemy world map is a map of the world known to Greco-Roman societies in the 2nd century. It is based on the description contained in Ptolemy 's book Geography , written c. 150 . Based on an inscription in several of the earliest surviving manuscripts, it is traditionally credited to Agathodaemon of Alexandria .
Ptolemy's work included a single large and less detailed world map and then separate and more detailed regional maps. The first Greek manuscripts compiled after Maximus Planudes's rediscovery of the text had as many as 64 regional maps. [b] The standard set in Western Europe came to be 26: 10 European maps, 4 African maps, and 12 Asian maps.
World maps assuming a spherical Earth first appear in the Hellenistic period. The developments of Greek geography during this time, notably by Eratosthenes and Posidonius culminated in the Roman era, with Ptolemy's world map (2nd century CE), which would remain authoritative throughout the Middle Ages.
The Ulm Ptolemy, the Ulm edition of Ptolemy's world map, which was part of the Geographia series, is described as the first map atlas printed north of Alps; the first atlas to be printed in more northern areas of Europe. It is a map of the Old World, shown as Africa and Eurasia.
In the upper-mid part of the main map there is inset another, miniature world map representing to some extent an alternative view of the world. Longitudes , which were difficult to determine at the time, are given in terms of degrees east from the Fortunate Islands (considered by Claudius Ptolemy as the westernmost known land) which ...
Ptolemy himself was eager to increase the library and to patronise scientific research. He spent lavishly on making Alexandria the economic, artistic and intellectual capital of the Hellenistic world. The academies and libraries of Alexandria proved vital in preserving much Greek literary heritage.
Medieval maps of the world in Europe were mainly symbolic in form along the lines of the much earlier Babylonian World Map. Known as Mappa Mundi (cloths or charts of the world) these maps were circular or symmetrical cosmological diagrams representing the Earth's single land mass as disk-shaped and surrounded by ocean. [6]
The oldest surviving Ptolomaic map of Palestine. A Byzantine Greek copy of Ptolemy's 4th Asia map. From Codex Vaticanus Urbinas Graecus 82, Constantinople c. 1300. Probably assembled by Maximus Planudes; later in possession of Palla Strozzi (1372-1462) then with Federico da Montefeltro, Duke of Urbino. Author: Ptolomy