Descriptionis Ptolemaicae Augmentum
Title
Descriptionis Ptolemaicae Augmentum
Alternative Title
Enlargement of Ptolemy's Description
Description
The Descriptionis Ptolemaicae augmentum by Cornelis van Wytfliet is the only regional atlas published during the first hundred years of atlas production outside of the Low Countries. The atlas was published as a supplement to Ptolemy’s work and its content was largely borrowed from its contemporary world maps, such as that of Mercator. This is the first atlas of the Americas, which comprised nineteen maps; there is a list of the areas mapped on one of the last pages. The particular edition at Carleton was imprinted in Douai in the year 1603 by Franciscus Fabri, who purchased all the unsold sheets of previous editions, together with the plates for the title-page and maps.
The first map in the book is a detailed world map with the north at the top, which has every 15 degrees of longitude and latitude as a grid, settling on the scheme based on the four cardinal directions. Van Wytfliet was influenced by Mercator’s tripartite division of the world into the Old World (Europe, Asia, Africa), the New World, and terra australis [southern land]. The map reflects this scheme: it consists of adjacent two circles, depicting the Old World and the New World. Both circles show the terra australis at the southern end.
The remainder of the book takes the format of the map of a region in the Americas followed by description of the region. Each regional map is rectangular and the longitudinal and latitudinal coordinates are indicated on its frame. It places emphasis on the coastline of the region in a manner that resembles portolan charts, where not much information is provided inland, and names of the settlements and rivers are written by the coast. In addition, the distinction between land and body of water is made clear by the placement of shadow on the coastline and the sea is given a grey color by filling it with dot-like marks. (Hiromichi Ueda ‘21)
The first map in the book is a detailed world map with the north at the top, which has every 15 degrees of longitude and latitude as a grid, settling on the scheme based on the four cardinal directions. Van Wytfliet was influenced by Mercator’s tripartite division of the world into the Old World (Europe, Asia, Africa), the New World, and terra australis [southern land]. The map reflects this scheme: it consists of adjacent two circles, depicting the Old World and the New World. Both circles show the terra australis at the southern end.
The remainder of the book takes the format of the map of a region in the Americas followed by description of the region. Each regional map is rectangular and the longitudinal and latitudinal coordinates are indicated on its frame. It places emphasis on the coastline of the region in a manner that resembles portolan charts, where not much information is provided inland, and names of the settlements and rivers are written by the coast. In addition, the distinction between land and body of water is made clear by the placement of shadow on the coastline and the sea is given a grey color by filling it with dot-like marks. (Hiromichi Ueda ‘21)
Creator
Cornelis van Wytfliet
Source
Wytfliet, Corneille. Descriptionis Ptolemaicæ avgmentvm : siue Occidentis notitia breui commentario illustrata, et hac secunda editione magna sui parte aucta Dvaci: Apud Franciscum Fabri, bibliopolam, 1603.
Format
atlas
Date
1603
Medium
engraving
Contributor
Special Collections, Carleton College, Northfield, MN
Relation
https://collections.library.yale.edu/catalog/16580277 shows digitized copy of two pages from the 1597 edition.
https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b55010487z/f1.planchecontact [the full 1597 edition]
https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b55010487z/f1.planchecontact [the full 1597 edition]
Language
Latin
Type
atlas
Spatial Coverage
Americas
References
Gallup, Donald. “The First Separately Published Atlas Entirely Devoted to the Americas: Wytfliet's Descriptionis Ptolemaicae Augmentum,” The Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America 76, no. 1 (1982): 63-73. Accessed May 12, 2021. http://www.jstor.org/stable/24302542.
Koeman, Cornelis, Günter Schilder, Marco Van Egmond, and Peter Van Der Krogt. “Commercial Cartography and Map Production in the Low Countries, 1500-ca.1672.” In The History of Cartography, vol. 3, part 2, Cartography in the European Renaissance, ed. David Woodward, 1296-1383. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007.
Zuber, Mike A. “The Armchair Discovery of the Unknown Southern Continent: Gerardus Mercator, Philosophical Pretensions and a Competitive Trade,” Early Science and Medicine 16, no. 6 (2011): 505-41. Accessed May 12, 2021. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41350346.
Rights
Rights for maps held by individual publishers and institutions. Thumbnails displayed constitute fair use.
Collection
Citation
Cornelis van Wytfliet, “Descriptionis Ptolemaicae Augmentum,” Mapping the World, accessed May 3, 2025, https://www.hist231.hist.sites.carleton.edu/items/show/37.