Author: Pomponio Mela
Title: Cosmographia, sive De situ orbis.
Title in English: Cosmography, or a Description of the World.
Bound with Dionysius Periegetes (r. 117–138 CE): De situ orbis.
Published: Venice, Franzesco Renner de Heilbronn, 1478.
Format: two works in one 4° volume; 48 ll. – 36 ll. nice roman type, 4 large decorated initial; headings printed in red. Few, scattered old manuscript notes.
Binding: contemporary half calf on wooden boards, paper label with handwritten title on spine (minor losses), original clasp. Modern case.
Very nice, unsophisticated copy from the private collections of M. Favia del Core (bookplate on the front pastedown) and Friedlaender. The volume includes, here bound together, two incunabula: the Cosmographia by Pomponio Mela, which is the earliest extant geographic treatise in Classical Latin, and the well-known De situ orbis by Dionysus Periegetes in the Latin version by Antonio Beccaria of Verona. Both texts are reference works of classical geography.
Reference: H 11017 e 6227. GW 8427. IGI 6343 e 3488. BMC V, 195. Goff M-450 e D-254; Libreria Antiquaria Mediolanum. Stand 81 // XXIII Mostra Internazionale del Libro Antico Bologna, 2010, No 48.
The geographical work A Description of the World by Roman historian and geographer Titus Pomponio Mela was written around 41-44 AD. It is composed of three books, which summarise the geographical knowledge of the time. It includes information about the Baltic Sea and its islands as well as the inhabitants of the Baltic region. The book is bound with A Description of the World (De situ orbis) by the ancient Greek geographer Dionysius Periegetes (117–138). Both texts were published in Venice in 1478.
Reference: "The Collection of Lawyer Jaunius Gumbis: the Past Preserved in Books". Museum and Collector - 7. Vilnius: National Museum of Lithuania, 2018, p. 15.
Published: "The Collection of Lawyer Jaunius Gumbis: the Past Preserved in Books". Museum and Collector - 7. Vilnius: National Museum of Lithuania, 2018, P. 14-17.
Exhibitions: "The Collection of Lawyer
Jaunius Gumbis: the Past Preserved in Books", September 3, 2018 – October
21, 2018.