1550 Tabula Asiae I

This is a rare first edition in Latin of Munster’s marvelous Ptolemaic map of Anatolia, with many ancient place names and geographical features depicted. Thrace and Constantinople appear in the upper left quadrant. Constantinople and Byzantium had been under the rule of the Turks for only a hundred and seventeen years when this map was made, and Munster chose to people the map with its ancient kingdoms and names. Directly across the Bosphorus from Constantinople we see the ancient kingdom of Chalcedon, which today is part of the city of Istanbul, with few extant remains of the Chalcedonians. Traveling down the coast we find Bithynia whose capital was in modern day Bursa, its nearby mountain peaks including what was Mount Olympus to the ancients, now known as Uludag. Continuing we see the famed kingdoms and cities of Phrygia, Troy, Pergamus, Smyrna, and Halicarnassus, the birthplace of Homer. Major cities and topographical features are remarkably accurately rendered, including the depic