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

The 1525 Strassburg 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 text on 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 of the more notable differences are 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 had been reported by Vespucci. 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 Here, the TERRA INCOGNITA has also been replaced by TERRA NOVA, and the reference to America’s discovery by Columbus is repeated.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 of the maps in his own edition, but this is Fries' own work, and it 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 are separate islands in Europe, and India is split into a double peninsula. Despite these distortions-- or because of them-- this map is much sought after. The map is bordered by a chain of banners naming the winds.

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. Also, only parts of America are shown at the very west of the map. Fries added five throned effigies of kings, representing those of Russia, Egypt, Ethiopia, Taprobana, and Mursuli. There is also a drawing of an elephant (or perhaps a mammoth) placed 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. This border is absent in the 1522 edition. 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, what would become Iran and Irak. The ancient Persian capital of Persepolis is identified. In the 1525 edition of Fries, a swimming duck was added to the Caspian Sea.

LAURENT FRIES (c. 1485 – 1532).
L. Fries, a physician, astrologer, and cartographic editor, was a native Alsatian. Nothing is known about his youth and early schooling. His university education in philosophy and medicine has been acquired at several schools. 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 trendy book with seven editions up to 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. The book was printed in 1522 by Johannes Grüninger, an esteemed printer from Strasbourg who had previously published the Waldseemüller. It was based on Waldseemüller's editions of 1513 and 1520. 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 volume was published jointly with the Nuremberg printer Johannes Koberger. 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