Claudius Ptolemaeus; Giovanni Antonio Magini — Geographiae universae tum veteris, tum novae (1597)

The Inventors of Geography, and who was Claudius Ptolemy, the author of this work.

A decorative woodcut depicts the letter I, filled with floral and foliate motifs.

The inventors of Geography and Cosmography, and those who have written on these subjects, were philosophers and men of great learning. Examples include Homer, whom Strabo calls the prince of geographers; Anaximander of Miletus; Hecataeus of Miletus; Democritus; Eudoxus; Dicaearchus; Ephorus; Eratosthenes; Polybius; Posidonius; Strabo; Pomponius Mela; Pliny; Solinus; and Marinus of Tyre. Among all of these, this Claudius Ptolemy is to be preferred above all others for his greater learning and more beautiful order in the present volume.

Although the homeland of Ptolemy was, according to some, Pelusium, a city of Egypt situated at that mouth of the Nile which is called Pelusiac after the city itself—and was once called Heliopolis, from the prince Helios, by whom it was surrounded with a triple wall, as Sabellicus confirms—Castaldus and Ziegler believe this city is called Damietta today. Others deny this, affirming that it is rather Tenesse, with whom I indeed agree.

The same Ptolemy is also called Alexandrian, not because the city of Pelusium is a short distance from Alexandria, as some write—for it is 160 miles away—but rather because Ptolemy lived in the city of Alexandria for a long time and made his observations there. There are those who think that this Claudius Ptolemy was descended from the ancient Ptolemaic Kings, as Vincent writes in his Historical Mirror original: "Speculo Historiali", but this cannot be true at all, since he did not flourish in the times of those Ptolemaic Kings of Egypt. This is clearly evident, for Ptolemy himself places many names of places in this geographical work which were established by the Romans, such as Iuliopolis, Forum Julii, Forum Flaminii, Legio Augusta, Forum Tiberii, and others of this kind.

Suidas is also deceived when he writes that this author lived in the times of the Roman Emperors Augustus and Tiberius, and was a contemporary of Mark Antony, that is, shortly before the coming of Christ. This certainly cannot be true, because Ptolemy wrote against the geographer Marinus, who lived 60 years after Christ. Furthermore, those are also wrong who think this Ptolemy was not the same one who wrote the Great Construction original: "Magnam Constructionem", which they commonly call the Almagest original: "Almaieslum"; the four books of the Apotelesmata original: "Apotelesmatum", or regarding the Judgments of the Stars, which they commonly call the Quadripartitum; and furthermore works on Music, the Analemma, the Planisphaerium, on mirrors, and others. He flourished around the year of our salvation 140, in the times of the Emperor Antoninus Pius, as is elicited from many observations of celestial motions made by him at that time, which he reports in his great composition of celestial motions.

These people say, however, that there were several Ptolemies, both kings of Egypt and men learned and famous in literature, as the same Suidas reports. To corroborate this opinion, they bring forward a sufficiently probable conjecture, which they derive from the diversity of the longitudes of certain places. For example, the longitude of Rome is noted in this Geography as 36 degrees and 40 minutes, and in the third chapter of the seventh book of the Almagest, 40 and a half degrees are presupposed, when Ptolemy makes Rome one hour and a third of an hour west of Alexandria there. Thus, if 20 degrees, corresponding to one hour and a third, are subtracted from the 60 and a half degrees of the longitude of Alexandria, there remain...