1597 Ptolemy - Magini - Keschedt Map of Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan - Geographicus - TabulaAsiaIX-magini-1597

A scarce and unusual 1597 Ptolemaic map of what constitutes modern day Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan. Presented on a trapezoidal projection with bold mountain ranges dividing the region. This map was engraved by G. Magini and G. Porro based upon the 1561 Valgrisi/Ruscelli edition of Ptolemy’s Geography. Shortly after Magini issued his edition of the Geographiae in 1596, Petrus Keschedt, a German publisher operating out of Cologne, copied it and began issuing his own pirated editions. In November of 1597, no less a figure than Abraham Ortelius spotted the pirate. Ortelius informed Magini and, in the face of legal action, Keschedt stopped publishing the atlas until 1608, at which point he recut the plates and issued a new edition. The 1596 Magini edition of Ptolemy’s Geographiae was the first small format edition of Mercator’s Atlas.