An elegant copper-engraved map of Arabia as it was known in Classical times with ancient place names and highly distorted geography. It was created in 1561 for Ruscelli's new translation of the ancient Greco-Roman geographer Claudius Ptolemy's 'Geographia', one of the most important geography texts ever printed. The map was subsequently reissued by Ruscelli in 1574 and again in 1598 with some minor changes. A complementary 'modern' map of Arabia also appeared in the atlas alongside this 'ancient' map to show advances in European knowledge since the Classical period.

This map of Arabia is based on Giacomo Gastaldi's miniature atlas map, first printed in 1648. Girolamo Ruscelli copied not just Gastaldi's geography, but also his production technique: copper-engraving. This was still a novel method of engraving in the mid-16th century when the much cheaper and faster wood-engraving still dominated. Copper-engraving allowed for much finer detail, creating crisper, more attractive maps. Ruscelli's map with its stippled sea and clear lettering (even for the smallest words) is an excellent example of this technique and is one finest miniature maps of Arabia available from the 16th century.

[MEAST4709]