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World Map and Atlas

THEATRVM ORBIS TERRARVM
[Theater of the World]

by Abraham Ortelius
407x546mm(two-page spread), half cloth binding, 53 colored plate, a geographic index, cloth case
With a Japanese commentary by Akio Funakoshi in a separate volume
Price 180,000 Yen 
ISBN978-4-653-02179-7

Abraham Ortelius (1527-1598), Flemish geographer, of German origin. Next to his contemporary Mercator, he is the most renowned of the 16th-century Flemish school of geography. He traveled with Mercator in 1560 and was thus inspired to begin his chief work, Theatrum orbis terrarum in 1570, the fi rst modern atlas of the world. The first edition of this atlas contained 53 maps, in part compiled from maps of 87 cartographers. This reprints 1570 Antwerp edition possessed in Leiden University Library.
This magnificently reproduced atlas offers specialist and non-specialist rare chance of examining essence of this old master’s monumental work.
[Facsimile reprint of 1570 Antwerp edition, possessed by Leiden University Library]

KUNYU WANGUO QUANTU
(Konyo Bankoku Zenzu)
[Map of the Ten Thousand Countries]
by Matteo Ricci
500x700mm, collotype print, 32 sheets of divided full -scale plates in monochrome, 2 size-reduced maps with the dividing lines, cloth case, with a Japanese commentary by Takeo Oda and Motohide Akiyama in a separate volume.
Price 125,000 Yen 
ISBN978-4-653-03283-0
Father Matteo Ricci (1552-1610) was the first Italian Jesuit to enter China. No person from the West had been such an infl uence upon that country. He was the first to introduce Western science into China and the first to penetrate to Peking. Ricci’s genius was in playing upon the Chinese reverence for learning. In astronomy, in prognosticating eclipses, in horology, and in cartography, the Jesuit scientist supplied a need and secured the respect and patronage of the Chinese Emperors. His first
world map was made sometime before the end of 1584, as a Chinese version of the European map hanging on the wall of the room. But no copy survives of this fi rst edition.
Nor are any copies of Ricci’s 2nd edition made in Nanking in 1600 at the request of a prominent Mandarin.
Our reprint edition is based on the 3rd world map published at Peking in 1602. This copy is one of five earliest surviving copies, located in Miyagi Prefectural Library as national important cultural assets. The oval projection of the 1602 map follows broadly that of the Abraham Ortelius’s Typus Orbis Terrarum, with the important alteration that China is placed in the center of the map.
Original copy was designed to fit a folding screen measuring some 3780mm by 1716mm, comprising six panels, each 631mm by 1716mm.
In this reprint copy, the whole map is divided into 32 sheets, each 480mm by 700mm. 2 sheets of reduced maps of the whole map, 20 pages of explanatory note in separate volume are included.
Scholars, students, and anyone, who are interested in early world map and early missionary history in Asia, will find this magnifi cent reproduction invaluable resource.
[Facsimile reprint of 1602 Peking edition, possessed by Miyagi Prefectural Library]

 

 

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