Strabo — Guilielmus Xylander [editor and translator] | Among the earliest and most important works on historical geography

Strabo — Guilielmus Xylander [editor and translator] 

Rerum geographicarum libri septemdecim. Basel: Henrich Petri, August 1571

Folio (349 x 219 mm). Printer's woodcut device on title-page, smaller device on verso of last leaf, text in Greek and Latin printed in two columns, woodcut initials, 27 double-page woodcut maps by Sebastian Munster, 6 smaller maps in the text by Johann Honter and others, one woodcut text diagram; 17th century manuscript inscription on verso of title. Contemporary limp vellum, manuscript title to spine.

Early edition of Strabo's Geography

One of the earliest and most important scientific treatises on historical geography, and Strabo's only surviving work, the Geographia represents an initial attempt to compile geographical knowledge in a unified manner. The work provides a survey of the topographical, historical, and political characteristics of the principal regions of the Roman world, also including information concerning philosophy, political theory, geology, mathematics, science, and history. Xylander's edition of Strabo is illustrated with most of the maps used in Sebastian Munster's editions of Ptolemy, printed by Heinrich Petri and his heirs from 1540.

REFERENCE

Adams S-1907; BM/STC German, 834; Phillips, Atlases 3390; Shirley, British Library G.STR-1a; Nordenskjold 287