Sexta Asie Tabula Arabiam Felice

Iconic map of the Arabian Peninsula published in the first edition of the “Geographia” outside of Italy. 

This map of Arabia originally appears in the very first printed edition of Ptolemy’s “Geographia”, published in Bologna in 1477. Further editions are recorded in Rome in 1478, followed by an edition in Florence and this edition in Ulm, both in 1482. There is some academic debate as to which of these 1482 editions was issued first but it is generally accepted that the Florence edition preceded the Ulm edition by a few months. 

The geographical information portrayed on this map is broadly the same as on all the earlier editions, although due to the Ulm edition’s use of the woodblock engraving method, the aesthetic style is wildly different. This marks a radical change in the appearance of this map to its predecessors.

Although the shape of the Arabian Peninsula is distorted, it remains easily recognizable. The greatest amount of detail is present along the coast, reflecting information collected by mariners and merchants active in the Red Sea and the Gulf. Conversely, the interior bears much sparser detail.

Upon a closer examination, there are several names and locations which will be comprehensible to modern scholars: the great Roman polymath Pliny is believed to be the source of many of these. Roughly on the coast of the modern Emirates is the name “Ichtiophagi”; this broadly translates to “Fishermen” or “people who subsist on fish.” Further north is the settlement of “Bilbana” which has been associated with a large regional culture of the first millennium. This, in turn, has been associated with the elaborate and extensive Ain Jawan archaeological remains which were discovered in the eastern part of modern Saudi Arabia. However, the most recognizable modern name is just west of the coastal settlement named “Guerra”. Guerra was described by Pliny as a large, fortified harbour. A short distance to the west is a settlement named “Cotara”, very likely a reference to Qatar.

On the coast of the Red Sea, several names will also be intelligible to the modern reader. In modern Yemen, the “Kingdom of Saba” is marked: there are numerous references to this Kingdom in ancient sources, and it is often associated with the land of Sheba. Much further north is the settlement of “Modina”, which has been identified as the region of the Kingdom of Midian. Today, this is the Saudi Arabian province of Tabuk and site of the futuristic arcology, Neom.

In the less-detailed interior, there are several names which correspond to ethnic groups of people. Of these, the most recognizable is “Saraceni”. By the medieval period, the name Saracens was universally applied by Europeans to inhabitants of the desert regions of Arabia.

The publisher of this magnificent map was Lienhart Holle. Although the base maps were drawn from the instructions left by Claudius Ptolemy, Holle used the revised and augmented maps drawn by Nicolaus Germanus for this edition of the “Geographia”.

Germanus was the first to use many of the illustrated geographical features we take for granted today, such as the use of dotted lines for boundaries; or the use of dots or circles to note specific locations such as settlements or cities. As mentioned above, Holle was also the first to use wood block as a printing method, as well as the first to print a written description of the corresponding map on its reverse.

Undeniably, the most famous feature of this map is the use of aquamarine to colour the sea in an extraordinarily rich, deep blue. Aquamarine was made of the semi-precious stone, lapis lazuli, and exported from mines in Afghanistan, hence a vastly expensive commodity. It was prized by artists for multiple reasons but the most important was that its specific shade was instantly recognizable could not be replicated by any other means until the 18th century. This unique colour makes the maps from the 1482 Ulm edition of the “Geographia” the most famous and desirable examples of cartographic incunabula.

Original colour. Latin text on reverse, Image available on request. [MEAST4806]