A beautiful map of the Balkan Peninsula, Greece, Crete and the Aegean islands. Mercator originally published this map in his 1578 edition of Ptolemy's great Geography. Although he is most renowned today for the projection he popularized and for first using the term Atlas for a collection of maps, he devoted much of his life to his Ptolemaic maps. The maps were beautifully engraved as nearly as possible to their original form and embellished with fine cartouches. This cartouche shows frolicking mer-people. This is from a 1730 edition.

References: Mickwitz & Miekkavaara, (Nordenskiold-2) #235-28.

Condition: A

A nice impression on strong laid paper with a printer's crease on the left. The right margin has an ink notation in an old hand, not affecting the map.