Lilius, Zacharius | Orbis breviarium, 1493

Lilius, Zacharius

Orbis Breviarium. Florence: Antonio Miscomini, 5 June 1493

Small 4to (194 x 138 mm). First edition, roman types, 26 lines, initial spaces with guide letters, index words in margins. Collation: a⁴ b-q⁸ r⁶: 130 leaves. White on black woodcut border on leaf a3 verso, 3 diagrams printed in red in text, woodcut printer's mark on last page; occasional spotting and soiling, mostly affecting the first and last few leaves, a stain to the final page, leaf a4 (with two diagrams on its verso) has a flattened horizontal fold with a short tear emanating from the fold to the gutter as though the leaf was at one point made into a folding plate despite fitting in with the text block, leaves r2-6 detatched, otherwise a generally bright, crisp copy. Later calf, blindruled boards, gilt spine; binding defective, worn, especially at the spine, with boards and endpapers detached.

The first printed geography by a modern author, and the first printed gazetteer, published just a year after Columbus' discovery of the New World.

This popular early manual of cosmography and geography contains an early "TO" world map, a diagram showing the world's circles of latitude, and one of the world's climes.

"The object of this curious and learned geographical work, originally written just before the discovery of the new Continent, seems to have been to post up into one little book all the knowledge and all the ignorance respecting our globe that could be collected from the ancients, as well as mediaeval writers, so as to start fair with the new light to be let in by Columbus. It is a sort of alphabetical dictionary of geography, with a good index. The works of Lilius are in Ortelius' famous list of geographical authorities published in 1570" (Sabin).

REFERENCES

Goff L 218; BSB L-176; Sabin 41068; Tooley, Mapmakers III, 136

PROVENANCE

Sunderland Library, Blenheim Palace (Armorial bookplate, "purchased, July, 1882, by Bernard Quaritch")