1574 Tabula Asiae III

This is a fine example of Ruscelli’s map on trapezoidal projection from his work La Geografia di Claudio Tolomeo Alessandrino. It is based on the work of Ptolemy, and Giacomo Gastaldi, and depicts the region between the The Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, extends into the territory of the Middle East and as far south as Mesopotamia. The map first appeared in the 1561 edition of Ruscelli's edition of Ptolemy's Geografia. Colchis is in its place on the Black Sea coast, and a large area to the east of Armenia, is labeled Assyriae. Caucasian Albania is in its place to the northwest of the Caspian Sea, with the neighboring Kingdom of Iberia to the west. Centered on present-day Eastern Georgia, it was bordered by Colchis in the west, Caucasian Albania in the east and Armenia in the south. Its population, the Iberians, formed the nucleus of the Kartvelians (i.e. Georgians). Close to the eastern end of the Caucasus range a defile opens up not far from the shore of the Caspian; this is the Darba