[Tabula IIII. Europae / Hae sunt e cognitis totius orbis Prouincijs seu Prefecturis...

Early woodcut map of Germany by Laurent Fries after Martin Waldseemüller. Showing the central part of Europe from Denmark to the Alps and from France to Poland. The origin of this map is the first so called "Modern Atlas" by Martin Waldseemuller since it is the first Ptolemy edition with twenty new regional maps beside the traditional twenty-seven Ptolemaic maps derived from the 1482 Ulm edition. The Atlas is titled Geographie opus Novissima Traductione e Grecorum Archetypis and published by Johann Schott in Strasbourg in 1513 and is one of the most important edition of the Ptolemy Atlases. In 1520 a second edition of the atlas was printed by Schott from the same woodcut blocks. It was reissued in 1522 and 1525 by Laurent Fries and Johannes Gruninger with size reduced maps. The wood blocks of Fries found their way into the ownership of Melchior and Gaspar Trechsel in Lyon. This map is the secound printing of the woodcut maps from the 1525 Strasbourg edition. The latin text on the verso of the map is flanked by ornate woodblock borders, which are said to be the work of Hans Holbein the Younger and Urs Graf.

Very good conditions.

Laurent Fries was a French physician and mathematician born around 1485 in Mulhouse. He settled finally in Strassburg where he meat Peter Apian and the publisher Johannes Grüninger which made him interested in the Ptolemy Atlas of 1513 and 1520. Fries made new woodcut maps in reduced size. His Ptolemy Atlas was published first in 1522, reissued in 1525, 1535 and 1541. He died in 1532.