Descriptionis Ptolemaicæ Augmentum, sive Occidentis Notitia Brevi commentario illustrata STudio et opera Cornely Wytfliet Lovaniensis
THE FIRST ATLAS OF THE AMERICAS
Louvain: Jean Bogard, 1597. First edition, first issue (Skelton/Koeman A).
Pot folio (11 ¾” x 7 5/8”, 298mm x 193mm): 4 binder’s blanks (1 old), π2 A-Z2 Aa4 (A4 blank), 3 binder’s blanks [$2 signed; E2 as “F2”, I2 as “H2”]. 52 leaves, pp. [6] (2 blanks, privileges, blank, 2pp. to the reader) 1-2 3 4-18 22 20-21 19 23-43 242 239 46-82 95 94 295 294 96-104 [3] (3 blanks). [=vi, 95, iii] With an engraved title-page (=π1) and 19 double-page engraved maps.
Bound in XXc deep brown morocco by Henri Alix (signed at the lower front turn-in). On the spine, 5 raised bands. Author and title (“CORNELY/ WYTFLIET/ [rule]/ DESCRIPTIONIS/ PTOLEMAICÆ/ AVGMENTVM”) gilt to the second panel, imprint gilt to the tail. Gilt fillet to the turn-ins. Marbled end-papers. All edges of the text-block gilt. Presented in a clam-shell box with an inset panel.
Bowed, with some light rubbing at the extremities. A repaired tear to the upper edge of the π1 blank, small paper-faults to the lower fore-corner of B2 and the upper fore-corner of X2. Probably washed in the mid-XXc, but nicely repatinated. Small ink collation in an old hand to the verso of the fourth initial binder’s blank (i.e., on old paper): “19 kaarten.” Graphite corrections to the mispaginations and a notation of the final “fol blanc.” Rich impressions of the plates, with plate tone (especially to the world map) and burrs.
Cornelis van Wytfliet (latinized to Cornelius à Wytfliet, ca. 1550–ca. 1597) was born in Leuven (Louvain) in the Flemish Netherlands. He rose to become secretary of the Council of Brabant, the supreme court of the Duchy of Brabant under Philip IV (i.e., Philip II of Spain and Portugal). Although he almost certainly never left the Netherlands, Wytfliet — doubtless due to his role as secretary — gained access to the Spanish and Portuguese maps and accounts of voyages in the New World. Thus provided, he published the first atlas devoted to the Americas as an “augmentum” (enlargement) of the Ptolemaic model of the world.
The Γεωγραφικὴ Ὑφήγησις (Geographical Guidance) of Claudius Ptolemaeus (Ptolemy, ad IIc) came to define geography in the XVc. When the discoveries of Columbus — who thought he had found the East Indies because of Ptolemy’s calculations and assertions about longitude — and other navigators came back to Europe, they were simply added to the Ptolemaic conception of the world until the model collapsed under the weight of novelty. Thus Wytfliet’s work is subtitled “Occidentis notitia” or “conception of the West,” stitching together the accounts of the Iberian explorers as a connective tissue among the world map (Shirley 207) and 18 detail maps: eight of North America (Burden 100–107) and ten of South America. The focus on America corresponds to an unusually high quality of the maps, easily unsurpassed until those of de Laet’s 1625 Nieuwe Wereldt.
The first state of the book — easily distinguished by its 95 pages of text[1] to the second’s 192 (Wyt 1 B, with narrower text and some additions) — is quite rare. The present volume is one of two complete examples ever to have come up at auction (Sotheby’s New York 24 January 2019, lot 2040). OCLC records 14 examples of the first issue in institutional collections — with remarkable omissions such as JCB and Harvard — of which 2 are certainly incomplete.[2] Gallup (1982) identifies two examples owned privately by Maurice Chamonal (reproduced in facsimile by Theatrum Orbis Terrarum and described by Koeman) and Charles W. Traylen — both of whose examples had an early error on the title-page, “WYTFLIT” for “WYTFLIET” — first states of the first issue of the first edition — it is unclear whether these remain in private hands or have entered institutional collections (the 2019 Sotheby’s cataloguer identifies just five institutional examples and notes Gallup’s two in private hands).[3] Gallup also thanks Thomas Winthrop Streeter for access to his example, which doubtless was lot 29 in part I in his epochal Parke-Bernet auctions 1966–1969.
Henri Alix (1921–1959) began working as a binder for the Bibliothèque nationale de France in 1944 before setting out on his own in the sixth arrondisement in 1947; he was named “meilleur ouvrier de France” in 1949, an acknowledgement of exceptional achievement in craft. The bindery was absorbed into Loutrel-Delaporte in 2015. The binding allows confirmation that the present volume was offered by Martayan Lan in 2012 for a staggering $285,000.[4]
Alden & Landis 597/70; Koeman Wyt 1 A; Sabin 105696 (note refers to the Huntington first edn.).
Gallup, Donald. “The First Separately Published Entirely Devoted to the Americas: Wytfliet’s Descriptionis Ptolemaicae Augmentum.” PBSA 76:1 (1982), 63–73: Aa.
[1] As often with first appearances of a book, there are many errors in pagination (vide supra) as well as signing. Even the headlines demonstrate the novelty of the work: it shifts from PTOLEMAICÆ AVGMENTVM to PTOLOMAICÆ ARGVMENTVM (p. 15ff., AVGMENTVM restored from p. 43) — and even (pp. 31 and 33) to TPOLOMAICÆ!
[2] Koninklijke Bibliotheek van Belgie LP 5.125 C (apparently incomplete: 10 maps), University of Chicago alc G1401 1597, ULB Darmstadt Gü 13454 (lacking 3 maps), Durham Routh 57.C.17, BnF Arsenal FOL-H-3136 (2), Huntington 55378, Southern Illinois University Carbondale VS, Lehigh SC R 912.7 W979d 159, University of Minnesota Bell 1597 fWy; New York Public Library *KB+ 1597 (Wytfliet, C. Descriptionis Ptolemaicæ Avgmentvm), Newberry Ayer 6 .P9 W9 1597a, Ossolineum (Wrocław) SL63249 sdXVI-13279, Oxford Weston E 1.8(1) Art., Uppsala Leufstasaml. F 80.
[3] Gallup cites an example of his Ab — a second issue of the first edition, with a privilege dated 15 April 1603 — at Yale, but this cannot be found. The third issue (Gallup’s Ac), with an Arnhem 1615 imprint, is exemplified at the Newberry, but it is separate from the above: Ayer 6 .P9 W9 1615.
[4] Arader purchased an example of the second edition in 2003 at Sotheby’s London. After it was determined to have been stolen by Anders Burius from the Swedish National Library, Arader returned it to Sotheby’s for restitution.
Item #JLR0799
Price: $225,000