Books

4to (210 x 150mm.) ff. xxiiii, 38 lines plus headline, last leaf with colophon on recto, modern half vellum over decorated paper boards, annotated throughout in brown ink (Venice: Albertino da Lessona, 14 May. This small tract reprints the text as edited by Ermolao Barbaro. Barbaro's edition is dedicated to Pope Alexander VI, to whom he also dedicated his Castigationes which were published in 1493. Ermolao Barbaro himself died 2 May 1493. Pomponius Mela, a Spanish geographer, wrote in the reign of the emperor Claudius, and just before his invasion of Britain. The work, which is a resume of geographical knowledge, is known in many manuscripts and was first printed in 1471 in Milan. Between 1471 and 1550 in Italy there were a number of editions, with two printed in Spain. For generations the book was used as a textbook of geography in schools. There is even an edition printed at Exeter in 1711 edited by Dr. John Reynolds, uncle of a well-known painter. Albertino da Lessona came from Vercelli and worked in Venice 1499-1506. There seem to be some 26 editions from his press printed from 1501. The ms. marginalia are simply names taken from the text. CNCE 24231 (listing 8 copies). OCLC records several copies in the USA, one in Paris, and one in Berlin. There is no book from this press in the British Library.

De situ orbis is an early geographical work by Pomponius Mela, providing detailed descriptions of the world as known to the Romans in the 1st century AD.