Mela, Pomponius:

$5,000 · Offered by William Reese Company

POMPONII MELAE COSMOGRAPHI DE SITU ORBIS.... Eighth edition, and the third edited by Barbarus, of the most popular geography text of the Renaissance. Pomponius Mela is often taken as an accurate sum of European geographical knowledge before the discovery of the New World. Mela's text is the earliest surviving Latin work on geography, and the only Roman treatise devoted exclusively to that subject. Barbarus, the editor of this edition, was a professor of philosophy at Padua and Venice. The publications of Mela and Ptolemy were incentives for further exploration, and in particular Mela's descriptions of Africa were used by the Portuguese navigators who were venturing far out into the Atlantic for the first time. This edition was issued just five years after Columbus returned to Spain from his first voyage to the New World.

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