1525 PTOLEMY, C. / FRIES, L. - The rare Ptolemy's geography translated by Bilibaldo Pirckheym, accompanied by Regiomantus's annotations,

This rare and interesting edition of Ptolemy's geography, translated by Bilibaldo Pirckheym and accompanied by Regiomantus's annotations, is said to have been edited by Johann Huttlich. The maps are printed from the same blocks as in the 1522 edition, except for the Tabula V. Asiae, which was re-engraved on a smaller scale to match the others. This edition of Ptolemy's Geography is a reduced version of Waldseemüller's 1513 edition but revised by L. Fries.

The 1525 Strasbourg edition is the first Ptolemy atlas to name the new continent "America". Fries' map is the first world map in an edition of Ptolemy to include the name America.
The back of map 28, which shows the New World, gives an account of Columbus's discoveries. The maps relating to America are Nos. 28, 34, 49, and 50.

The work is composed of an impressive xylographed title page, large lettering and diagrams, and maps with text on versos enclosed within ornamental borders (said to be after the designs of Hans Holbein the Younger).

Illustrated with 50 double-page maps (except for a single one on the back of a double) including 3 World maps, a map of America, "Oceani Occidentalis seu Terre Nove Tabula" and maps featuring Asia, Africa, Europe, France, Italy, Greece, Crete, the Rhine province, Alsace and Lorraine, England, Spain, etc. The maps are woodcut. The back of the maps is richly illustrated with woodcut culs-de-lampe, vignettes, and decorations.

AMERICA : "Oceani Occidentalis seu Terre Nove Tabula" :
« In 1522, Laurent Fries published an edition of Ptolemy’s Geography in which all the maps, including this one, were reduced versions of Waldseemüller’s 1513. Some notable differences include the Columbus name PARIAS found in North America, misplaced from South America; the addition of a Spanish flag over Cuba; and a scene in South America depicting cannibals and an opossum, both of which Vespucci had reported. The last map is taken directly from Martin Waldseemüller’s great twelve-sheet Carta Marina of the World, 1516. Here, the TERRA INCOGNITA has also been replaced by TERRA NOVA, and the reference to America’s discovery by Columbus is repeated. A large area of text below Hispaniola describes that island’s location, its discovery by Columbus, and its products. The latitude markings are now corrected and more legible. » (Burden).

Fries' WORLD MAP : "Orbis typus universalis…" :
This world map is an excellent example of the evolving (yet still warped) medieval conception of the world's geography. Fries used Waldseemuller's 1513 edition of Ptolemy's Geographia as the source for most maps in his own edition, but Fries' work is even more inaccurate than Waldseemuller's rendering of the modern world. The name America appears for the first time on a Ptolemaic map and is used to identify South America, which occurs with an entirely speculative western coastline. Even relatively well-known areas of the Old World become flawed in Fries' depiction. Scotland and England appear as separate islands in Europe, and India is split into two peninsulas. Despite these distortions-- or because of them-- this map is much sought after. A chain of banners naming the winds borders the map.

The SECOND MODERN WORLD MAP by Fries : "Tabula Moder. Gronlandiae et Russiae", 1525, reduced from Waldseemüller's map of 1513.
The map is placed at the very end. It is a reduced version of Waldseemüller's map but lacks the crisscross lines. Only parts of America are shown at the far west of the map. Fries added five throned effigies of kings representing Russia, Egypt, Ethiopia, Taprobana, and Mursuli. A drawing of an elephant (or perhaps a mammoth) appears just off the coast of Greenland.

PTOLEMAIC WORLD by Laurent Fries after Martin Waldseemüller, 1525 :
This is the first edition of the map with the decorative border, wind heads, and clouds surrounding it. The 1522 edition lacks this border. The woodcut decorations around the map are attributed to Albrecht Dürer, who also made the famous woodcut print of the armillary sphere in this atlas.

TABULA V ASIAE :
Laurent Fries’ map of Persia is one of the earliest available maps of the region between the Persian Gulf and the Caspian Sea. It shows Babylon and Mesopotamia, which would become Iran and Iraq. It identifies Persepolis, the ancient Persian capital. In the 1525 edition of Fries, a swimming duck was added to the Caspian Sea.

The atlas includes "Tabula Asia VI; an attractive woodblock map depicting the Caspian Sea, Black Sea, and the Persian Gulf, extending to the Imaus Mountains. According to Ptolemy. At the center of the map is modern-day Uzbekistan, with the prominent River Ox and the town of Bactra (Bakhara), and the region is labeled SOGDIANA. Sogdiana is a historical region in present-day Uzbekistan, located in the basins of the Zerafshan and Kashkadarya rivers and along the Silk Road.

LAURENT FRIES (c. 1485 – 1532).
L. Fries, a physician, astrologer, and cartographic editor, was an Alsatian native. Nothing is known about his youth and early schooling. He studied philosophy and medicine at several universities. He probably attended Vienna, Montpellier, Piacenza, and Pavia. He obtained a Doctor of Arts degree at one of these institutions.
His first professional position was in Sélestat, near Strasbourg. He practiced medicine in Colmar from 1514 to 1518. He wrote several medical works, including a practice entitled Spiegel der Artzny (Mirror of Medicine), a popular book with seven editions through 1546. After 1519, he moved to Strasbourg, where he stayed until about 1527.
In 1520, Fries became involved in publishing new editions of maps by Martin Waldseemüller. He collaborated with Peter Apian to publish a much-reduced version of Waldseemüller's map of 1507.

In the meantime, Fries was preparing a new edition of Ptolemy's Geographia. Johannes Grüninger, an esteemed Strasbourg printer, printed the book in 1522 and had previously published the Waldseemüller. It was based on Waldseemüller's 1513 and 1520 editions. Fries says in a note to the reader: "…, we declare that Martin Waldseemüller, piously deceased, originally constructed these maps and that they have been drawn in a format smaller than they ever had". The book sold well, and new editions would follow, printed with the same woodblock.

In 1525, Willibald Pirkheimer, the Nuremberg humanist, published a new edition with Grüninger. The Nuremberg printer Johannes Koberger published the volume jointly. It included the same fifty Waldseemüller/Fries maps as the 1522 edition.

Reference: Sabin, 66482 ; Shirley, The Mapping of the World : 47, 48, 49 ; Burden, The Mapping of North America : 4

Lorenz Fries (1490-1531)

Lorenz (Laurent) Fries was born in Alsace in 1490 or thereabouts, describing himself on one occasion as from Colmar. He studied medicine at university, or rather at universities, as he seems to have had a peripatetic education, apparently spending time at the universities of Pavia, Piacenza, Montpellier and Vienna. After completing his education, Fries established himself as a physician in a succession of places in the Alsace region and finally settled in Strasbourg around 1519. By this time, Fries met the Strasbourg printer and publisher Johann Grüninger, an associate of the St. Die group of scholars formed by, among others, Walter Lud, Martin Ringmann, and Martin Waldseemuller. Grüninger.

Fries and Grüninger's major project was a new edition of Claudius Ptolemy's Geographia, published by Johann Koberger in 1522. Here again, Fries evidently edited the maps, in most cases simply producing a reduction of the equivalent map from the 1513 edition of the Geographie Opus Novissima, printed by Johann Schott.
Fries also prepared three new maps for the Geographie: South-East Asia and the East Indies, China, and the World, but their geography derives from Waldseemüller's world map of 1507. Lorenz (Laurent) Fries was born in Alsace in c. 1490. He studied medicine at university and established himself as a physician in France before settling in Strasbourg in about 1519. There, Fries met the printer and publisher Johann Grüninger, an associate of the St. Die group of scholars formed by, among others, Martin Waldseemüller. For the next five years, from about 1520 to about 1525, Fries worked in some capacity as a cartographic editor for or with Grüninger, exploiting the material that Waldseemüller had created from Ptolemy. Unfortunately, there is little evidence to help gauge the exact nature of the relationship.

Fries' first venture into mapmaking was in 1520; that is the date found on a map of the World, bearing his monogram. The map reduced Waldseemüller's wall-map of the World, published in 1507. Fries and Grüninger's major project was a new edition of Ptolemy's Geographia, first published in 1522. Fries evidently edited the maps, in most cases simply reducing the equivalent maps from the 1513 edition of the Geographie Opus Novissima. Fries also prepared three new maps for the Geographia: South-East Asia and the East Indies, China, and the World, but their geography derives from Waldseemüller's 1507 world map.

In 1525, Fries was forced to move on as he had exhausted the existing body of Waldseemüller's works. For whatever reason, his departure marked the end of his cartographic work, and he returned to writing medical textbooks, which occupied him until his death in 1531 or 1532. The 1535 and 1541 editions of Fries’ Geographia are printed posthumously. Karrow noted "Grüninger had high hopes for this edition, one of the grandest products of his press in a period when it was not known for producing grand books. The edition suffered, however, from a great many textual errors.
Nevertheless, the book sold well enough to justify a new edition three years later..."
Instead, it would appear that Grüninger sought to recoup his investment by preparing an improved edition. To this end, he sought the assistance of Wilibald Pirkheimer to re-edit the text, using the notes of Johannes Regiomontanus.
The new edition was ready in 1525. As Karrow notes, the press-work was not of a high standard, and Pirckheimer was generally dissatisfied with the finished book.

After Grüninger died in 1531, the business was continued by his son Christoph, who seems to have sold the materials for the Ptolemy to two Lyons publishers, the brothers Melchior and Gaspar Trechsel, who published a joint edition in 1535, before Gaspar Trechsel published an edition in his own right in 1541.

Michael Servetus
Moving to Lyon under the name Villanovanus, Servetus edited scientific works and published a translation of Ptolemy’s Geographia. About 1534, a rendezvous was arranged with John Calvin in Paris to discuss theological questions, but Servetus failed to arrive.

Servetus and Calvin Two editions of Laurent Fries' atlas were edited by Michael Servetus. In those difficult times, Servetus was accused of heresy. One piece of evidence used against him was a passage on the reverse of the modern map of the Holy Land, which said that "Palestine was not such a fertile land as was generally believed, since modern travelers reported it barren". Unfortunately, this was not Servetus' original view, but was a passage repeated from the 1522 edition.
This charge seems to have counted against Servetus for, when he was burnt at the stake, Calvin ordered that copies of the book should be burnt with him.
Fortunately, it seems that Calvinist authorities may only have burnt a few token copies!