Nikolaos Sophianos's Totius Graeciae Descriptio: The Resources, Diffusion and Function of a Sixteenth‐Century Antiquarian Map of Greece

Abstract

Nikolaos Sophianos's Totius Graeciae Descriptio, an early regional map of Greece, was a cartographical bestseller of the late sixteenth century. The first editions of the map (1540, 1544, 1545) were hitherto believed to be lost, and contemporary references are few. Such references as could be found were collected and published by Émile Legrand in 1885, and his data, enhanced by information derived from later reissues of the map (1552 and 1601), provided the foundation for recent bibliographical entries. This material has now been supplemented by recently rediscovered examples of the 1545 edition of Sophianos's map. By combining the new evidence with the material accompanying the various editions of the map (geographical introductions, indexes and gazetteers), it has proved possible to reconstruct the map's publishing history, to analyse its content and to investigate certain issues related to the methodology, uses and functions of early modern antiquarian cartography of Greece.

Dr George Tolias is Research Director, Institute for Neohellenic Research, The National Hellenic Research Foundation.

Keywords:

• Sixteenth century
• antiquarianism
• printing
• gazetteers
• tables of ancient and modern place‐names
• Greece
• Ptolemy
• Pausanias
• Antonio Blado
• Johannes Oporin
• Abraham Ortelius
• Nicolaus Gerbel
• Nikolaos Sophianos

Acknowledgements

Thanks are due to Christos Zacharakis and Constantine Staikos for their aid in locating Sophianos's maps, to Catherine Delano Smith for her constant advice, and to the anonymous Imago Mundi referee for helping me to avoid mistakes and misjudgements.

Notes

Dr George Tolias is Research Director, Institute for Neohellenic Research, The National Hellenic Research Foundation.

1. On the relations between history and cartography in the 14th century, see Patrick Gautier Dalché, ‘L'espace de l'histoire: le rôle de la géographie dans les chroniques universelles’, in L'Historiographie médiévale en Europe, Actes du colloque organisé par la Fondation Européenne de la Science au Centre de Recherches Historiques et Juridiques de l'Université de Paris I du 29 mars au 1er avril 1989, ed. J.‐P. Genêt (Paris, Presses du CNRS, 1991), 287–300; Nathalie Bouloux, Culture et savoirs géographiques en Italie au XIVe siècle (Turnhout, Brepols, 2002). On 15th‐century antiquarian Florentine cartography, see Sebastiano Gentile, Firenze e la scoperta dell’ America. Umanesimo e geografia nel ’400 fiorentino (Florence, Leo Olski, 1992). On historical atlases, see Jeremy Black, Maps and History: Constructing Images of the Past (New Haven and London, Yale University Press, 1997); Walter A. Goffart, Historical Atlases: The First Three Hundred Years, 1570–1870 (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 2003).

2. On Greek studies during the Renaissance, see Anthony Grafton and Lisa Jardine, ‘The new subject: developing Greek studies’, in From Humanism to the Humanities: Education and the Liberal Arts in Fifteenth‐ and Sixteenth‐Century Europe (London, Duckworth, 1986); Carlotta A. Dionisiotti and Anthony Grafton, The Uses of Greek and Latin: Historical Essays (London, Warburg Institute, 1988); Jean Michel Saladin, La bataille du Grec à la Renaissance (Paris, Les Belles Lettres, 2000).

3. On the ‘universal spirit’ of the age, see Denis Cosgrove, ‘Globalism and tolerance in early modern geography’, Annals of the Association of American Geographers 93 (2003): 852–70. On the contacts between Catholicism and Orthodoxy, see Deno J. Geanakoplos, Byzantine East and Latin West: Two Worlds of Christendom in Middle Ages and Renaissance: Studies in Ecclesiastical and Cultural History (Hamden, Conn., Archon Books, 1966).

4. His father was Pavlos Sophianos, as is known from a letter written to him by Cardinal Bessarion (F. D. Mavroidi, ‘Ειδήσ∊ις για τα ∊λληνικά τυπογραφ∊ία της Ιταλίας τον 16ο αιώνα’, Δωδώνη 4 (1975): 237 n.2). Pavlos may have been the Sophianos mentioned in the sources as having taught Greek in Rome towards the end of the 15th century (Andreas Moustoxydis, ‘Νικόλαος Σοφιανός’, Ελληνομνήμων 4 (April 1843): 236–56, esp. 236–37, 242, and 5 (May 1843): 257–64). On Nikolaos Sophianos, see also H. Hodius, De Graecis illustribus (London, 1742), 309–11; Émile Legrand, Bibliographie Hellénique ou description raisonnée des ouvrages publiés en Grec par des Grecs au XVe et XVIe siècle (Paris, 1885), 1: clxxxvii–cxciv; Robert W. Karrow, Jr., Mapmakers of the Sixteenth Century and Their Maps: Bio‐Bibliographies of the Cartographers of Abraham Ortelius, 1570 (Chicago, Speculum Orbis Press for the Newberry Library, 1993), 495–99 (‘Nicolaos Sophianos, Soffiano, Sophianos’); Evro Layton, The Sixteenth Century Greek Book in Italy: Printers and Publishers for the Greek World (Venice, Library of the Hellenic Institute of Byzantine and Post‐Byzantine Studies, 1994), no. 16, esp. 460–72 (‘Nikolaos Sophianos, fl. 1533–1552’).

5. Sophianos attended the Greek College on the Quirinal Hill (ad Caballinum Montem) in 1515 or 1516. The college had been founded by Pope Leo X in 1513–1514 but soon closed, most probably on the pope's death in 1521. Sophianos's fellow pupils were young Greeks who were in Rome as students, boys of mixed social origins who came from various parts of the Levante Veneto and the Peloponnese. See Vittorio Fanelli, ‘Il ginnasio greco di Leone X a Roma’, Studi romani 9 (1961): 379–93; Saladin, La bataille du Grec à la Renaissance (see note 2), 101–22.

6. The Orthodox authorities in Constantinople did not approve the Council's decisions and anathema was pronounced against the pope. The bibliography on the Council of Ferrara–Florence is extensive. For a succinct overview, see Joseph Gill, Le Concile de Florence (Paris, Desclée de Brouwer, 1964).

7. Deno J. Geanakoplos, Greek Scholars in Venice: Studies in the Dissemination of Greek Learning from Byzantium to Western Europe (Cambridge Mass., Harvard University Press, 1962).

8. See M. Petrocchi, La politica della Santa Sede di fronte all’ invasione ottomana (1444–1718) (Naples, Libreria Scientifica Editrice, 1955); also Kenneth M. Setton, The Papacy and the Levant (1204–1571), esp. vol. 3, The Sixteenth Century to the Reign of Julius III (Philadelphia, The American Philosophical Society, 1984).

9. Mariarosa Cortesi and Enrico Maltese, eds., Dotti bizantini e libri greci nell'Italia del secolo XV. Atti del convegno internazionale (Napoli, M. d'Auria, 1992); Saladin, La bataille du Grec (see note 2). The literature on scholars of the post‐Byzantine diaspora is extensive. A wealth of information about Greek books in 16th‐century Italy is to be found in Layton, The Sixteenth Century Greek Book in Italy (see note 4), with an extensive bibliography.

10. Sophianos catalogued the library of Cardinal Niccolò Ridolfi, the pope's nephew. See R. Ridolfi, ‘La biblioteca del cardinale Niccolò Ridolfi (1501–1550). Nuovo contributo di notizie e di documenti’, La bibliofilia 31 (1929): 173–93.

11. Sophianos appears to have treated the Sceptic philosopher's empirical materialism and subversive aphorisms as relief from his strenuous mental exertions. In his dedicatory verses addressed to Georges de Selve he remarked: ‘Do not look for beautiful writing, O excellent ambassador of the Celts and glory of wise men, my own good and noble benefactor; for this book is full of humorous sallies and was written extempore, at great speed, by a hand tired out by hard labour. Those who tire themselves out by writing ought to be paid’. Quoted in Legrand, Bibliographie Hellénique (see note 4), 1: clxxxix. Sophianos's copy of the Pyrrhonian Sketches is now in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France (MS Parisinus 1963 (anc. Fond grec)). On the impact of Pyrrhonism in Renaissance thought, see Pierre‐François Moreau, ed., Le scepticisme au XVIe et au XVIIe siècle (Paris: A. Michel, 2001). On the other surviving manuscripts copied by Sophianos, see Legrand, Bibliographie Hellénique (note 4), 1: clxxxix–clc. Konrad Gesner mentioned others that he saw in Sophianos's library in Venice (Konrad Gesner, Bibliotheca universalis, sive Catalogus omnium scriptorum locupletissimus, in tribus linguis, latina, graeca et hebraica (Zurich, C. Froshauer, 1545), entries on Nicolaus alias Laonicus, Philon, Apollonius Dyscolus, Dionysius Byzantinius, Eustathios).

12. On Sophianos's dictionary of modern Greek, see Legrand, Bibliographie Hellénique (note 4), 1: cxciv. Sophianos also promoted living forms of the Greek language by making a copy of a vernacular literary text, the Chronicle of the Palatine Counts Tocco (G. Schirò, ‘Un apografo della Cronaca dei Tocco prodotto da Nicola Sofianòs’, Revue des Études Sud‐Est Européennes 7 (1969): 209–19). He also collaborated in the writing of the Commedia dei Tre Tiranni by A. Ricchi, created for Luigi Gritti, a prominent politician who was a natural son of the Doge Andrea Gritti and a Greek lady from Constantinople. The play relates the adventures of Byzantine refugees in Italy. Sophianos's contribution consisted of passages of dialogue in Grechesco, a Greco‐Venetian dialect of the late 15th and early 16th centuries which was current in Venice thanks to the mass influx of Greek‐speaking refugees after the fall of Constantinople. See Mario Vitti, Nicola Sofianòs e la commedia dei tre tiranni di A. Ricchi (Napoli, Istituto Universitario Orientale. Seminario di Greco Moderno, 1966).

13. For Antonio Blado, see F. Barberi, ‘Blado, Antonio’, Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani 10 (1968): 753–57, with an extensive bibliography (756–57).

14. See P. Paschini, ‘Un cardinale editore. Marcello Cervini’, in Miscellanea di scritti di bibliografia ed erudizione in memoria di Luigi Ferrari (Florence, Leo Olschki, 1952), 383–413.

15. Theophylaktos, Archbishop of Ochrida, Ερμην∊ία ∊ις τα τέσσ∊ρα Ευαγγέλια [In quatuor Euangelia enarrationes] (Rome, Antonio Blado, 1542); Eustathios, Archbishop of Thessaloniki, Παρ∊κβολαί ∊ις την του Ομήρου Ιλιάδα (Rome, Antonio Blado, 1542). A letter from Donado Giannotti (1492–1573), a Florentine scholar at the court of Cardinal Ridolfi, addressed to Piero Vettori (1499–1585) and dated 22 January 1542, states that ‘The Greeks [namely, Matthaios Devaris and Nikolaos Sophianos] . . . have started work on Eustathios's commentary on Homer, the one edited by Laskaris which was in the possession of Cardinal Ridolfi’ (Donato Giannotti, Lettere a Piero Vettori, ed. Roberto Ridolfi and Cecil Roth (Florence, A. Vallecchi, 1932), 105–6).

16. The typeface was designed by Sophianos and cut by Stefano Nicolini da Sabbio (see Layton, The Sixteenth Century Greek Book in Italy (note 4), 463–64). Giovanni Onorio designed another, smaller typeface which was used for the remaining volumes of Eustathios and all the other editions of the Vatican press (see Layton, ibid., 31–33).

17. N. Sophianos, Π∊ρί κατασκ∊υής και χρήσ∊ως κρικωτού αστρολάβου [Concerning the Construction and Use of the Armillary Astrolabe] [Rome, Antonio Blado, 1540–1542]. For the publication date, see Layton, The Sixteenth Century Greek Book in Italy (note 4), 463. The dedication is reproduced in Legrand, Bibliographie Hellénique (see note 4), 1: 266.

18. Alberto Tinto, ‘Nuovo contributo alla storia della tipographia greca a Roma nel secolo XVI: Nicolo Sofiano’, Gutenberg Jahrbuch 40 (1965): 171–75.

19. Tinto, ibid.; and W. A. Pettas, ‘Nikolaos Sophianos and Greek printing in Rome’, The Library, 5th ser., 29 (1974): 206–13.

20. See Anthony Hobson, Renaissance Book Collecting: Jean Grolier and Diego Hurtado de Mendoza, Their Books and Bindings (New York, Cambridge University Press, 1999). On Mendoza, see David H. Darst, Diego Hurtado de Mendoza (Boston, Twayne, 1987).

21. Aubrey Diller, ‘The Vatopedi manuscript of Ptolemy and Strabo’, American Journal of Philology 58:9 (1937): 174–84, reprinted in his Studies in Greek Manuscript Tradition (Amsterdam, Hakkert, 1983), 7–17, especially 15–17. Archival evidence confirms Sophianos's presence in Venice on 31 January and on 19 September 1543 (Layton, The Sixteenth Century Greek Book in Italy (see note 4), 464). A letter from Johannes Metellus, the geographer and antiquary, to Antonio Augustin, dated Venice, 8 February 1543, informs us that Sophianos was already in Greece. His return in September is confirmed by Konrad Gesner. G. B. Amalteo, in a letter to Paolo Manuzio (27 February 1561), states that Sophianos made two journeys to Greece and that he brought back 300 Greek manuscripts (Paolo Manuzio, Lettere di Paolo Manuzio copiate sugli autografi esistenti nella Biblioteca ambrosiana (Paris, G. Renouard, 1834), 359). The number given for all the Greek manuscripts brought back from Greece may be no exaggeration; for besides those he bought for Mendoza, he must have acquired a considerable number of his own. Gesner makes frequent references to manuscripts that he had seen in Sophianos's library (Gesner, Bibliotheca universalis (see note 11).

22. See E. Yiotopoulou‐Sisilianou, Αντώνιος Έπαρχος, ένας Κ∊ρκυραίος Ουμανιστής του ιστ' αιώνα (Athens, 1978), 74; Paschini, ‘Un cardinale editore’ (note 14), 396–97.

23. It was based initially in Bartolomeo Zanetti's printing house and later in Sophianos, Eparchos and Samariaris's own printworks (‘printed in the house of Nikolaos Sophianos and his partners Markos Samariaris and Nikolaos Eparchos’). The partners are mentioned in the Prayer Book, which they published in 1545. The fruits of this venture were editions of Antonios Eparchos's lament on the downfall of Greece (September 1544), pseudo‐Plutarch's On the Education of Children, in a demotic Greek translation (January 1545), and two liturgical books—a Book of Hours (May 1545) and a Prayer Book (December 1545). For a detailed catalogue of Sophianos's editions, see Layton, The Sixteenth Century Greek Book in Italy (note 4), 468–69.

24. Quoted by Legrand, Bibliographie Hellénique (see note 4), 1: 248–49.

25. Layton, The Sixteenth Century Greek Book in Italy (see note 4), 468.

26. Ibid., 467.

27. The notarial act is dated Rome, 1 June 1551. See Tinto, ‘Nuovo contributo alla storia della tipographia greca’ (note 18), 172; Pettas, ‘Nikolaos Sophianos and Greek printing in Rome’ (note 19); and also Denis E. Rhodes, ‘The printing of a group of Greek books in Rome’, The Library, 5th ser., 31 (1976): 242–44.

28. Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Département des manuscrits, Collection Dupuy, vol. 796, fol. 603 (Melanchthon's letter to Sophianos, dated after 29 May 1551), and fol. 601 (Melanchthon 's letter to Sophianos, dated after June 1551).

29. On Sophianos's copy of minor Greek geographers, see Diller, ‘The Vatopedi manuscript of Ptolemy and Strabo’ (note 21). Sophianos made handwritten annotations on Erasmus's Greek edition of Ptolemy's Geography (Basel, Froben, 1533). See Moustoxydis, ‘Νικόλαος Σοφιανός’ (note 4), 241; Legrand, Bibliographie Hellénique (note 4), 1: 266. A number of scholars past and present attribute to Sophianos a geography published at Basel (see Jacopo Morelli, Bibliotheca Pinelliana: A Catalogue of the Magnificent and Celebrated Library of Maffei Pinelli, Late of Venice (London, 1789), 1: 7; Juan Andrés, Antonii Augustini, archiepiscopi Tarraconensis, epistolae latinae et italicae (Parma, 1804), introduction, 138; Roberto Almagià, Carte geografiche a stampa di particolare pregio . . . dei secc. XVI e XVII (Città del Vaticano, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, 1948), 2: 75). Moustoxydis and Legrand consider that this is a mistake caused by Andrés's misreading of Morelli. For more about the armillary sphere see note 17.

30. R. V. Tooley, ‘Maps in Italian atlases of the sixteenth century, being a comparative list of the Italian maps issued by Lafreri, Forlani, Duchetti, Bertelli and others found in atlases’, Imago Mundi 3 (1939): 12–47; David Woodward, ‘Italian composite atlases of the sixteenth century’, in Images of the World: The Atlas through History, ed. John A. Wolter and Ronald E. Grim (Washington, D.C., Library of Congress, 1997), 51–70.

31. Legrand, Bibliographie Hellénique (see note 4), 1: clxxxvii–cxciv; Karrow, Mapmakers of the Sixteenth Century (see note 4), 495.

32. Andrés, Antonii Augustini (see note 29), 167. This letter informs us that the Hellenist Philaenus Lunardus had recently praised the map. See Legrand, Bibliographie Hellénique (note 4), 1: cxc; and Karrow, Mapmakers of the Sixteenth Century (note 4), 495.

33. Gesner reported, ‘item Graeciae tabulam impressam cum multis nomenclatures’ (Emil Arbenz, ed., Vadianische Briefsammlung der Stadtbibliothek St. Gallen, 7 vols. (St Gallen, 1881–1913), letter no 1285; and B. R. Jenny, ‘Arlenius in Basel’, Baseler Zeitschrift für Geschichte und Altertumskunde 64 (1964): 16).

34. Gesner, Bibliotheca universalis (see note 11), 523.

35. Arnout van Eynthouts, known as Arnoldus Arlenius, was acting as a scout for Oporin and other Basel publishers (Jenny, ‘Arlenius in Basel’ (note 33), 16–17).

36. Gesner in his letter to Vadianus, 7 April 1543, also reported ‘que omnia hac estate ab Oporino Basiliae excudentur’ (Arbenz, Vadianische Briefsammlung (note 33), letter no 1285).

37. See Arbenz, Vadianische Briefsammlung (note 33), letter no. 1373, and Jenny, ‘Arlenius in Basel’ (note 33), 17, n.34. See also Gesner's confirmation (Bibliotheca universalis (note 11)).

38. Gesner, Bibliotheca universalis (see note 11), 523.

39. When Ernst Meyer saw Sophianos's map in Athens, it was bound in Nicolaus Gerbel's In descriptionem Graeciae Sophiani, praefatio (1545), which was part of the Constantine Sathas Library (Sathas 982) that had been purchased by the National Library of Greece in 1909 (see note 54 below for the full title). This explains why Sathas gave the correct date for the first Rome edition of Sophianos's map in his Ν∊ο∊λληνική Φιλολογία [Modern Greek Literature] (Athens, 1868), 142. Let it be noted here that Moustoxydis too gave the correct date of the first edition (‘Νικόλαος Σοφιανός’ (see note 4), 242). See also Frank Hieronymus, Basler Buchillustration 1500 bis 1545 (Basel, Universitätsbibliothek Basel, 1984), 541–47; Frank Hieronymus, ed., Griechischer Geist aus Basler Pressen. Katalog der frühen griechischen Drucke aus Basel in Text und Bild (Basel, Öffentliche Bibliothek der Universität Basel, 1992), entry GG 292; Peter H. Meurer, Fontes Cartographici Orteliani: Das ‘Theatrum Orbis Terrarum’ von Abraham Ortelius und seine Kartenquellen (Weinheim, VCH, Acta Humaniora, 1991), 241–42.

40. Library of Congress, Geography and Map Division, G 2000 1545 G 45 Vault. See Clara E. LeGear and Walter W. Ristow, ‘Sixteenth‐century atlases presented by Melville Eastham’, reprinted from the August 1958 issue of the Library of Congress Quarterly Journal of Current Acquisitions, in A la Carte; Selected Papers on Maps and Atlases, ed. Walter W. Ristow (Washington, DC, Library of Congress, 1972), 57–58. This copy, which is also bound in Gerbel's In descriptionem Graeciae Sophiani, praefatio (1545), is in the Melville Eastham collection of nine 16th‐century atlases. It bears the ex‐libris from the collection of the Austrian Ferdinand Hoffman.

41. See Sotheby's, Natural History, Travel, Atlases and Maps, catalogue (London, 18 November 2004), lot. 219. The present location of the map has not been disclosed.

42. See Hieronymus, Basler Buchillustration, (see note 39), 544.

43. ‘Αιλιανού Ποικίλης Ιστορίας, βιβλία ΙΔ’ . . ., Bonus Eventus/Αγαθός Δαίμων, ∊ν Ρώμη, 1545’ (Aeliani variae Historiae libri, XIIII . . . (Romae, [Antonio Blado,] 1545)). The mark ‘Bonus Eventus’ was first used by Blado in the 1540 Rome edition of Sophianos's map. The choice of Bonus Eventus (Agathos Daimon or Agathodaimon), could have been originally inspired by the cartographer Agathodaimon, the mysterious Alexandrian engineer of the 6th century, mentioned in the early Ptolemaic manuscripts as the one who drew the world map following Ptolemy's instructions (see J. Lennart Berggren and Alexander Jones, Ptolemy's Geography: An Annotated Translation of the Theoretical Chapters (Princeton, New Jersey, Princeton University Press, 2000), 43).

44. ‘Ήδη γαρ ∊ν τοις του Πτολ∊μαίου μαθηματικοίς συντάγμασι διατριβόντος μου . . . ‘[Although working on Ptolemy's mathematical treatises . . .] (N. Sophianos, [Concerning the Construction and Use of the Armillary Astrolabe] (see note 17)). See also Legrand, Bibliographie Hellénique (note 4), 1: 266.

45. Barberi, ‘Blado, Antonio’ (note 13), 756.

46. Eustathios of Thessaloniki occupied a prominent place among Sophianos's sources. Although his contribution is not mentioned in Sophianos's address to the reader, Sophianos was thoroughly familiar with his writings, since he had worked on the Vatican Press edition of Eustathios at about the same time (see note 15). Sophianos could have used Stephanus of Byzantium's geographical dictionary, On Cities (c.6 cent. ad), which had been first printed by Aldus Manutius in Venice, 1502.

47. ‘Nomina antiqua et recentia urbium Graeciae descriptionis, a N. Sophiano iam aeditae. Hanc quoque paginam, quae Graeciae urbium ac locorum nomina, quibus olim apud antiquos nuncupabantur, et quibus nunc appellantur, diligenti cura perquisita, continet, studiosis obnoxii, imprimi curauimus: ut inde eis non minus utilitatis, ac voluptatis, quam ex descriptione iam aedita, accedere possit. Atque hic recenti vocabulo interpretata nomina, numero simili quo etiam quae sunt in descriptionis tabula annotauimus: ut sine negotio et hic, et ibi inueniri queant’. [Antique and modern names of the towns of Greece, for Sophianos's published map. This page contains the names of the towns and places of Greece as they were called by the ancients and as they are called now, that we verified with care and diligence for the reader. It is indeed very useful since it allows the access to the published map. We have marked the modern equivalents of the [antique] names with the same number, here and on the map, so that it is easy to find them here and there.]

48. ‘. . . cum nominibus locorum antiquis et recentioribus . . .’ (Gesner, Bibliotheca universalis (see note 11), 523.

49. One copy is in the National Library of Greece (Sathas 982), and the other is in the Library of Congress, Geography and Map Division (G 2000 1545 G 45 Vault).

50. Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Département des Manuscrits, Collection Dupuy, vol. 728, fol. 183.

51. The copy with the four laudatory epigrams is in the National Library of Greece (Sathas 982). Sophianos probably met Fausto Sabeo (c.1475–1559) during his time at the Quirinal College, when Sabeo was working at the Vatican Library. I have not been able to establish Sophianos's connection with the other three. Moustoxydis (‘Νικόλαος Σοφιανός’ (see note 4), 242), states that the idea of publishing the epigrams came from Gerbel. The verses represent Sophianos as an exiled Greek and refer to his country's sad fate.

52. Hieronymus, Basler Buchillustration (see note 39), 546.

53. Hieronymus, Griechischer Geist aus Basler Pressen (see note 39), entry GG 292; and idem, Basler Buchillustration (note 39), 547.

54. Nicolai Gerbelij in descriptionem Graeciae Sophiani praefatio. In qua docetur, quem fructum, quamque voluptatem allatura sit haec pictura studiosis, si diligenter eam cum Historicorum, Poëtarum, Geographorumque scriptis contulerint. Eiusdem de situ, nominibus & regionibus Graeciae perbrevis in picturam Sophiani introductio. Item Celebrium aliquot urbium descriptiones. Eiusdem Gerbelij canon, quomodo, & in quot partes Picturae huius longitudo partienda sit . . . Regionum, montium, fluviorum, insularum, urbium, locorumque omnium in Pictura nominatorum Index (Basel, Johannes Oporin, September 1545). Nicolaus Gerbel or Gerbelius (born in Pforzheim, Baden‐Württemberg, c.1485, died in Strasbourg, 1560), was an active supporter of the Reformation and editor of a New Testament in Greek (Hagenau, Thomas Anshelm, 1521). On Gerbel, see Auguste‐Frédéric Liebrich, Université de France. Faculté de théologie protestante de Strasbourg. Nicolas Gerbel, jurisconsulte‐théologien du temps de la Réformation, thèse présenté, . . . pour obtenir le grade de bachelier (Strasbourg, Vve Berger‐Levrault, 1857); Adolf Büchle, Der Humanist Nikolaus Gerbel aus Pforzheim (Durlach, 1886).

55. The 1545 edition contains woodcuts of 21 imaginary views, each measuring 8×12.5 cm: Tarentum, Athenae, Thebae, Megara, Delphi, Amphissa, Calydon, Actium, Argos Amphilochium, Dodona, Thessalonice, Tempe, Larissa, Lamia, Corinthus, Argos, Lacedaemon, Messene, Olympia, Pellene and Megalopolis.

56. Hieronymus, Basler Buchillustration, (see note 39), 542.

57. Gerbel, Praefatio (see note 54), 8: ‘Caeterum de inenarrabili utilitate historiae, de divino Nicolai Sophiani consilio, de me quoque, quae necessaria credebam, haec praefari uolui’ [Certain of the remarkable benefit of history, I prefaced it [the map] with the advice of the divine Nikolaos Sophianos].

58. Hieronymus, Basler Buchillustration (see note 39), 542. Karrow states that the new set of views was ready by 1547 (Mapmakers of the Sixteenth Century (see note 4), 496).

59. Nicolai Gerbelij Phorcensis pro declaratione picturæ sive descriptionis Græciæ Sophiani libri VII, Quæ uerò singulis libris tractentur, statim post nuncupatoriam epistolam ad clarissimos heroas Do. Wilhelmum & Othonem, comites ab Eberstein, proprio elencho indicabitur (Basel, Oporin, 1550). According to Alonso Lasor a Varea (called Savonarola), Universus terrarum orbis scriptorum calamo delineatus (Padua, 1723), 1: 466, there was also a 1554 edition of the map; see Karrow, Mapmakers of the Sixteenth Century (note 4), 497.

60. Gerbel, Pro declaratione picturæ sive descriptionis Græciæ Sophiani (see note 59), 8–9.

61. No surviving copy of Sophianos's map carries the date 1550, but Oporin could have used copies of the 1545 reissue to accompany the 1550 edition of Gerbel's Praefatio. What seems to have been intended as an upper border strip has been attached to the bottom of both the 1545 Basel edition map that is now in the Library of Congress and the exemplar sold at Sotheby's in 2004. The strip could have been part of a full frame containing the new set of views.

62. On Vavassore, see Leo Bagrow, Giovanni Andrea di Vavassore: A Venetian Cartographer of the 16th Century. A Descriptive List of His Maps (Jenkintown, G. H. Beans Library, 1939), n.14.

63. Christos Zacharakis, A Catalogue of Printed Maps of Greece, 1477–1800, 2nd ed. (Athens, Samourkas Foundation, 1992), no. 2348.

64. The full title is Totius Graeciae descriptio. N. Sophianus studiosis S. Tabella ipsa ostendere poterit, si longe impensiori cura, atque exactiori diligentia quam hactenus, eam pro chorographi[a]e et geographi[a]e, ratione et ordine, conati sumus describere: ut opera quoque nostra studiosis ipsis (quibus mirifice gratificari cupimus) non nihil utilitatis afferrentur. . .. Romae in templo Boni Eventus. M.D.LII.

65. ‘Die Römer Karte von 1552 von Stock von 1540 gedruckt ist’ (Hieronymus, Basler Buchillustration (see note 39), 545).

66. Karrow, Mapmakers of the Sixteenth Century (see note 4), 71/1.5; Zacharakis, A Catalogue of Printed Maps of Greece (see note 63), no. 2046.

67. Karrow, ibid., 71/1.6; Zacharakis, ibid., no. 1387.

68. Karrow, ibid., 71/1.7 (Ferrando Bertelli), 71/1.8 (Giovanni Francesco Camocio); Zacharakis, ibid., no. 226 (Ferrando Bertelli), no. 534 (Giovanni Francesco Camocio). Donato Bertelli, Totius Graeciae descriptio [. . .] D. Bertelli aereis formis [. . .] 1569 (Zacharakis, ibid., no. 195.

69. Antonio Lafreri, Totius Graeciae descriptio. . .. 1570 typis Antonis Lafreri (Zacharakis, A Catalogue of Printed Maps of Greece (see note 63), no. 1210). Paolo Forlani, Graeciae chorographia. Franciscus philosopho, mathematico, . . . Guardiano Grande della Scola de S. Marco il signor Thomasso Ravenna . . . Da Venetia il di 9 di Maggio 1562 . . . Paulo Forlani Veronese (Zacharakis, ibid., no. 1028). Graeciae Chorographia. Franciscus Salamanca Lectori. . . Roma, Claudii Duchetti formis.

70. Karrow, Mapmakers of the Sixteenth Century (see note 4), 71/1.10; Zacharakis, A Catalogue of Printed Maps of Greece (see note 63), no. 1616.

71. Descriptio nova totius Graeciae per Nicolaum Sophianum (Basel, Johannes Schroeterus, 1 January 1601). Karrow, Mapmakers of the Sixteenth Century (see note 4), 71/1.11; Zacharakis, A Catalogue of Printed Maps of Greece (see note 63), no. 2242 note; Hieronymus, Griechischer Geist (see note 39), GG 292.

72. Nicolaus Gerbelius, ‘In Graeciae Sophiani descriptionem explicatio’, in Thesaurus graecarum antiquitatum, ed. Jacobus Gronovius, 13 vols. (Leyden, P. et B. van der Aa, 1697–1702; 2nd ed., Venice, B. Javarina [vol. 1–5] and Giambattista Pasquali, [vol. 6–13], 1732–1737), vol. 4 (1699).

73. Tony Campbell, The Earliest Printed Maps 1472–1500 (London, The British Library, 1987), 127.

74. ‘Nam ex Herodoto et Thucidide, Pausania, Strabone, et recentioribus tam maritimis quam terrestribus tabulis accurate descriptis quae in nostram rem conducere arbitrari sumus excerpsimus; tum Ptolemeum minime mendosum cum pluribus vetustis exemplaribus summa diligentia pro viribus conferentes ac non pauca addentes corrigentesque, eo praesertim duce’.

75. The surprisingly limited interest of Renaissance scholars and antiquarians in the description of Greece by Pausanias (fl.143–176) is mentioned by Sebastiano Gentile, Firenze e la scoperta dell’ America (see note 1), 111. On Pausanias's fate during the 15th and 16th centuries, see Aubrey Diller, ‘Pausanias in the middle ages’, Transactions of the American Philological Association 87 (1956): 84–97, and ‘The manuscripts of Pausanias’, ibid. 88 (1957): 169–88, both reissued in his Studies in Greek Manuscript Tradition (see note 21), 149–62 and 163–82.

76. The vignette of Athens is similar to the illustration included on page 19 of the first (1545) edition of Gerbel's Praefatio and identical to the one included in Sebastian Münster's Cosmographia universalis (Basel, H. Petri, 1544). This could be owing to Master Christoph's collaboration on both editions.

77. Strabo, Geography, Bk 7, 7. 6 (Loeb edition).

78. The Crusader‐type alliance between the Venetians, Charles V, Ferdinand of Austria and Pope Paul III was formed in February 1538 and disbanded in autumn 1540, having failed to achieve any of its objectives. In early 1540, the year when Sophianos drew his map, armies from the Holy League were still active in the Greek peninsula.

79. Sophianos's map formed part of both the Alonzo de Santa Cruz map collection (see Peter Meurer, ‘An invoice of 1546 for a delivery of maps from the Fugger trading house to Alonzo de Santa Cruz’, Cartographica Helvetica 16 (1997): 35, 37), and the Viglius van Aytta collection (see Leo Bagrow, ‘Old inventories of maps’, Imago Mundi 5 (1948): 20). On the presence of Sophianos's map in Italian composite atlases, see R. V. Tooley, ‘Maps in Italian atlases of the sixteenth century, being a comparative list of the Italian maps issued by Lafreri, Forlani, Duchetti, Bertelli and others, found in atlases’, Imago Mundi 3 (1939): 12–47, esp. 32 (nos 278, 279, 281, 284, 285, 286, 288, 291). Antonio Millo included a manuscript copy of the map in his atlas, now in Berlin (see George Tolias, The Greek Portolan Charts: A Contribution to the Mediterranean Cartography of the Modern Period, transl. G. Cox and J. Solman (Athens, Center for Neohellenic Research, NHRF/Olkos Publications, 1999), 200–2. For the presence of the map in Cambridge University libraries, see Catherine Delano Smith, ‘Map ownership in sixteenth‐century Cambridge: the evidence of probate inventories’, Imago Mundi 47 (1995): 89, entry 11. For inclusion in the Frankfort book fair catalogues, see Bernhard Fabian, Die Messkataloge des sechzehnten Jahrhunderts (Hildesheim and New York, Georg Olms Verlag, 1972), 1: 533.

80. See Aubrey Diller, ‘Byzantine lists of old and new geographical names’, Byzantinische Zeitschrift, 63 (1970): 27–42, reissued in his Studies in Greek Manuscript Tradition (note 21), 279–94.

81. For an example of Ptolemy's Geography with such lists, see the manuscript copy belonging to Guillaume Fillastre, which is accompanied by lists of ancient and modern regional names as well as lists of the spoken languages. On Fillastre's manuscript (now in the Bibliothèque Municipale de Nancy, MS 441), see Patrick Gautier Dalché, ‘L'oeuvre géographique de Guillaume Fillastre (†1428). Représentation du monde et perception de la carte à l'aube des découvertes’, in Humanisme et culture géographique à l'époque du concile de Constance. Autour de Guillaume Fillastre. Actes du Colloque de l'Université de Reims, 18–19 novembre 1999, ed. D. Marcotte (Turnhout, Brepols, 2002), 293–355, esp. 345–55. See also the list entitled ‘de locis ac mirabilibus mundi’ in the edition of the Geography, published by Johann Reger in Ulm in 1486 (Gentile, Firenze e la scoperta dell’ America (note 1) , 118, entry 60). On 15th‐century antiquarian Florentine cartography, see Sebastiano Gentile, ‘L'ambiente umanistica e lo studio della geografia nel secolo XV’, in Amerigo Vespucci. La vita e i viaggi, ed. L. Formisano, G. Fossi, P. Galluzzi and S. Gentile (Florence, Banca Toscana, 1991), 9–63, and Gentile, Firenze e la scoperta dell’ America (note 1), 207–12.

82. Some examples are the concordance of ancient and modern place‐names for Giacomo Gastaldi's map of Sicily (1545); the list of ancient and modern place‐names in the British Isles included in Paolo Giovo's Descriptio Britanniae, Scotiae, Hyberniae (1548); and in the book by Orazio Toscanella, I nomi antichi e moderni delle provincie, regioni, citta, castelli, monti, laghi, fiumi, mari, golfi, porti et isole dell' Europa, dell' Africa et dell' Asia (1567). Mention should also be made of the concordance of place‐names by Arnold Mylius, published separately as an appendix to the Theatrum Orbis Terrarum of Abraham Ortelius (c.1578). It was expanded in subsequent editions of the Theatrum with the title of Synonymia Geographica sive populorum, regionum, insularum, urbium . . . appellationes et nomina and published as an independent volume under the title Thesaurus Geographicus (Antwerp, C. Plantin, 1587). We should note here that Ortelius made ample use of Sophianos's concordances in the Thesaurus Geographicus. For an overview of the antiquarian investigations during the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries, see Arnaldo Momigliano, ‘Ancient history and the antiquarian’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 13 (1950): 285–315; and Alain Schnapp, The Discovery of the Past, transl. I. Kinnes and G. Varndell (New York, Abrams, 1997).

83. Westerners believed the country to have been totally devastated. Aenea Sylvio Piccolomini (1405–1464, Pope Pius II) expressed the widely shared belief that Greece was definitively ruined: ‘Alas! How many towns once great by their reputation and their industry are now destroyed. Once there stood Thebes, Athens, Mycenae, Larissa, Sparta, the town of Corinth and other famous cities, [now] if you look for their walls you will not find even ruins’ (Aenae Sylvii Piccolomini, Opera quae extant (Basel, M. Hopperus, 1551), 681). Piccolomini's opinion became the common conviction, even among specialists, and Martin Crucius was happily surprised in 1575 to learn that the city of Athens still existed. See Léon Emmanuel S. Joseph de Laborde, Documents inédits ou peu connus sur l'histoire et les antiquités d'Athènes tirés des archives de l'Italie, de la France, de l'Allemagne (Paris, Jules Renouard et Cie, 1854), 10–14.

84. ‘Nomina antiqua et recentia urbium Graeciae descriptionis à N. Sophiano iam aeditae. Romae, typis A. Lafreri, 1570’ (Karrow, Mapmakers of the Sixteenth Century (see note 4), 498, 71/B.1). See also Gastaldi's toponymic list with ancient and modern Greek place‐names which was a supplement to his map of Greece: ‘I nomi latini tratti dall'antico Greco, et i volgari hora nominati, di tutta la provincia della Grecia et parte della Natolia di tutte le regioni città castelli, monti, Loghi, Fiumi, Mari, Golfi, Porti et isole; graduato ogni luoco in longuezza et larghezza. Opera nuova di Giacommo di Gastaldi Piemontese Cosmographo’ (Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Cartes et Plans, Rés. Ge CC 1380 (64); Anna Avraméa, ‘Une source méconnue: la liste des noms anciens et modernes de la Grèce par Giacomo Gastaldi’, Studia Balcanica 10 (1975): 171–76).

85. On the title page of the Praefatio (see note 54), Gerbel describes the gazetteer as an index: ‘Regionum, montium, fluviorum, insularum, urbium, locorumque omnium in Pictura nominatorum index’.

86. ‘Sequitur locorum in Pictura Sophiani inventendorum Canon’ (Praefatio (see note 54), 79–80).

87. Zur Shalev, ‘Sacred geography, antiquarianism and visual erudition: Benito Arias Montano and the maps of the Antwerp Polyglot Bible’, Imago Mundi 55 (2003): 56–80. On the pedagogical role of maps, see Lesley B. Cormack, Charting an Empire: Geography at the English Universities 1580–1620 (Chicago, the University of Chicago Press, 1997).

88. ‘Graecorum tam historicorum quam poetarum lectionem etque utile ac necessarium parari posse videretur’.

89. Gerbel, Praefatio (see note 54), 3–4.

90. ‘Sed per Musas, Lector, literarum atque historiae inventrices, obtestor, nonne obscura, nonne cimmeriis tenebris haec simillima erunt’ (Gerbel, Praefatio (see note 54), 4).

91. For the role of the image in Renaissance antiquarianism, see Peter Parshall, ‘Imago contrafacta: images and facts in the northern Renaissance’, Art History 16 (1993): 554–79; Christopher S. Wood, ‘Notation of visual information in the earliest archaeological scholarship’, Word & Image 17 (2001): 94–118. For the function of maps in 16th‐century historiography, see Marie‐Dominique Couzinet, Histoire et méthode à la Renaissance. Une lecture de la Methodus ad facilem historiarum Cognitionem de Jean Bodin (Paris, J. Vrin, 1996), 225–68.

92. ‘Abraham Ortelius citizen of Antwerpe, and Geographer to Philip the second, King of Spaine, to the courteous Reader’, in Theatrum Orbis Terrarum (London, John Norton, 1606; reprinted, Amsterdam, Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, 1968, with introduction by R. A. Skelton).

93. See Black, Maps and History (note 1), 7.

94. To become history, the past needs to be recognized as a sequence, that is a chronological succession; see Krzysztof Pomian, L'ordre du temps (Paris, Gallimard, 1984), 37. On the map ‘tense’ in early cartography and whether it refers to the past, the present or both at the same time, see David Woodward, ‘The image of the map in the Renaissance’, in Approaches and Challenges in a Worldwide History of Cartography, ed. David Woodward, Catherine Delano Smith and Cordell D. K. Yee (Barcelona, Institut Cartogràfic de Catalunya, 2001), 151.

95. Gesner, Bibliotheca universalis (see note 11), 523.

96. See François Hartog, L'histoire, d'Homère à Augustin (Paris, Éditions du Seuil, 1999), 185–86.

97. See Hans Baron, ‘The Querelle of the Ancients and the Moderns as a problem for Renaissance scholarship’, Journal of the History of Ideas 20 (1959): 17–18; Benedetto Croce, Théorie et histoire de l'historiographie (traduit de Italien par Alain Dufour) (Genève, Droz, 1968), 152–55; Pomian, L'ordre du temps (note 94), 45–48; François Hartog, Anciens, modernes, sauvages (Paris, Galaade, 2005), 30–32.

98. Oronce Fine used Latin characters for ancient place‐names and Gothic characters for modern ones in his Totius Galliae Descriptio, first published in Paris in 1525 (Monique Pelletier, Cartographie de la France et du monde de la Renaissance au siècle des lumières (Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, 2001), 11).

99. On the impact of Sophianos's map on the cartography of Greece, see George Tolias, ‘Totius Graeciae: Nicolaos Sophianos's map of Greece and the transformations of Hellenism’, Journal of Modern Greek Studies 19 (2001): 1–22.

100. ‘Omnia mutantur, mutata est Graecia solers, / in faciem redigis quam, Sophiane, suam;/nunc vera effigies, quam nec Jovis ira, nec aestus, / nec poterit posthac ulla abolere dies’.

101. On the impact of Renaissance universalism on geography, see Cosgrove, ‘Globalism and tolerance’ (note 3), 864–65; Frank Lestringant, ‘Le monde ouvert’, in Questions d'histoire: L'Europe de la Renaissance, 1470–1560, ed. Gérald Chaix (Nantes, Éditions du Temps, 2002), 11–15; J. M. Headley, ‘Geography and empire in the late Renaissance: Botero's assignment, Western universalism, and the civilizing process’, Renaissance Quarterly 53 (2000): 1119–55. For the interest of the Reformation in the Greek language, see Saladin, La bataille du Grec (note 2); for the use of maps, see Catherine Delano Smith, ‘Maps as art and science: maps in sixteenth century Bibles’, Imago Mundi 42 (1990): 65–83; Catherine Delano Smith and Elizabeth Morely Ingram, Maps in Bibles 1500–1600 (Geneva, Librairie Droz, 1991).

102. Early in 1544, Sebastian Münster included in his Cosmographia universalis (see note 76) a map of modern Greece which closely follows Sophianos's map in a simplified, schematic version. The same map was included in Münster's third and fourth editions of Ptolemy's Geography (Basel, H. Petri, 1545 and 1552), and continued to be included in all the subsequent editions of Münster's Cosmographia up to 1578. The map was followed by a succinct concordance table of 57 ancient and modern place‐names mentioned on the map and based mainly on Sophianos's concordance of place‐names (‘Graeciae modernae facies cum succindo indice nominum que mutationem temporis successu accepterunt’). See H. L. Ruland, “A survey of the double‐page maps in 35 editions of Münster's Cosmographia universalis, 1544–1628, and his edition of Ptolemy's Geographia, 1540–1552’, Imago Mundi 16 (1962): 84–97.

103. The first half of the sixteenth century witnessed the fierce religious controversy between Catholic and reformed humanists over the acceptance or abandonment of Greek as the original sacred language. The general decline in the study of Greek was set in train at the start of the Council of Trent (1545–1564), where the decision was taken in 1545 to sanction only the Latin Vulgate as the authoritative text. See Saladin, La bataille du Grec à la Renaissance (note 2).

104. See Giorgio Mangani, Il ‘mondo’ di Abramo Ortelio: Misticismo, geografia e collezionismo nel Rinascimento dei Paesi Bassi (Modena, Franco Cosimo Panini, 1998); R. Boumans, ‘The religious views of Abraham Ortelius’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 17 (1954): 374–77. On Parergon, see Marcel van den Broecke, ‘Historical maps and their texts in the first modern atlas by Abraham Ortelius’, Caert‐Thresoor 22:2 (2003): 29–39; Liliane Wellens–De Donder, ‘Un atlas historique: le Parergon d'Ortelius’, in Abraham Ortelius (1527–1598): cartographe et humaniste, ed. Pierre Cockshaw and Francine de Nave (Turnhout, Brepols, 1998), 83–92. On the sacred subjects in Parergon, see Walter Melion, ‘Ad ductum itineris et dispositionem mansionum ostendenbam: meditation, vocation, and scared history in Abraham Ortelius's Parergon’, Journal of the Walters Art Gallery 57 (1999): 49–72. See also Cosgrove, ‘Globalism and tolerance’ (note 3).

105. The Lords of the Holy Roman Empire are portrayed in two successive plates by Gerard de Jode, entitled ‘Ordines Sacri Romani imp.’, which formed part of the Theatrum Orbis Terrarum from 1603 onwards and the Parergon from 1623. See Peter H. Meurer, ‘Abraham Ortelius’ concept and map of “Germania”’, in M. van den Broecke, P. van der Krogt and P. H. Meurer, eds, Abraham Ortelius and the First Atlas (‘t Goy‐Houten, HeS Publishers, 1998), 263–70. For the providential design in Parergon, see Mangani, Il ‘mondo’ di Abramo Ortelio (note 104), 125–39.

106. See Cosgrove, ‘Globalism and tolerance’ (note 3), 857. Gerbel's main source for the description of Tempe was Claudius Aelian's text (Varia historia, III, 1), which Gerbel gives in Greek and Latin (Praefatio (1545), 42–44). Ortelius used the Latin translation of Aelian's text, naming Gerbel as his source.

107. Zacharakis, A Catalogue of Printed Maps of Greece (see note 63), no. 3 (Petrus van der Aa, 1729), no. 274 (Jean Boisseau, 1643), no. 627 (Philipp Clüver, 1624), no. 1090 (Jodocus Hondius, 1596, published by Petrus Bertius, 1618, 1619), no. 1103 (Georg Hornius, 1654), no. 1142 (Johannes Janssonius, 1651), no. 2510 (Claude Jollain, 1668), nos. 1344, 1345 and 1346 (Henri Le Roy (1640, 1646, 1660), no. 1520 (Herman Moll, 1716), nos. 2243 and 2244 (John Speed, 1627, 1646).

108. See note 11.

109. Legrand, Bibliographie Hellénique (see note 4), 1: cxciii.

110. See Numa Broc, La géographie de la Renaissance, 1420–1620 (Paris, C.T.H.S., 1986), 93–97.